The shopkeeper looks at it sharply with his little eyes for some time, then answers with a smile,—
“Sixty yen.”
Your hands go up in horror. “What?” you frantically exclaim; but the merchant answers you with another smile. Your emotion, however, is as feigned as the shopkeeper’s apparent firmness, for you know that it will be an easy matter to make him reduce the price,—the main question being whether your limit will be the same as his. The chances are that he will take just about one-third what he asks, and make a handsome profit then. So, you with the proper spirit decide to take him at an even lower figure and reply,—
“I will give you fifteen.”
The dejected air that suddenly spreads over his face is the kind of which a Japanese merchant is alone capable. He gives a great sigh and gazes at you with a look that seems to ask if you were born without a heart. His emotion is so great that he may even rise, walk around the shop, and examine several of his dearly beloved curios that have not been subjected to such outrageous treatment. He will soon return, however, and, with the humblest voice in the world and a sadly withered smile, announce his ultimatum,—
“Will give for thirty yen.”
You shake your head, push the rare object aside, and rise. You do not intend to go, but you begin to look at a different line of goods. The shopkeeper has not lost his politeness, and he takes the utmost pains in showing a large number of things that he knows you never intend to buy. During all this you and he occasionally cast furtive glances at the object of your disagreement, but neither one for a long time makes any allusion to it. Finally, the moment comes for you to go, but you decide to make one more attempt, which you know will be effectual. Picking up the dainty bronze, you say in an off-hand manner that you will give him twenty yen.
He looks at you sadly, and then again at the object in your hands. He casts his eyes at the ceiling, bestows a glance upon his innocent children playing with grasshoppers and crickets, all unaware that they are being defrauded of an inheritance, makes the bow of humiliation, and says with a short gasp,—
“I am resigned.”
After he has expressed his emotions in this unvarying phrase, his spirits seem once more to return. He smiles again in his old way, and his bows have the old obsequiousness. He even gives you another cup of tea, and in other ways betrays the secret satisfaction that he feels on having made a very good bargain. He follows you down the stairs to the awaiting jinrikisha and bids you farewell with the most touching “Sayonara” that you have yet heard. As you slowly ride away, the last thing you see is his bowing form in the door, and you give a sigh at the thought that all this display of friendship is but owing to the fact that you have probably paid twice what you should for the dainty bronze statue that is to adorn your library at home.