"Tre lire."
"Bother the man! I'm not talking about a tray!" cried Mrs. Trubbles, in an exasperated tone. "Here!--this! Use your eyes. Paper-cutter. 'Papero cuttero. Quanto?'"
"Tre lire, signora."
"He means three francs," explained Victoria.
"Oh, does he. I'll give him two."
"Questo e troppo," said Otterburn, bringing forward his only bit of Italian with great ostentation. "Two--due--lire, signor. Ah, che la morte."
"No, no," from the shopkeeper, "non e molto."
"Now what does that mean?" cried the matron, referring to her text-book. "Here it is: 'not much,'--si, si; far too much, too molto, due--due lire," producing them triumphantly from her purse.
With many deprecating shrugs and asseverations in fluent Italian that such a sale would ruin him, the shopkeeper at last accepted the two lire, and Mrs. Trubbles with great satisfaction secured what she wanted. They then bought a few more things by pursuing the same system of beating down the prices, and all three ultimately left the shop with the firm conviction that they had secured bargains, which they decidedly had not.
"These pigs of English," observed the astute shopkeeper to his wife, "always talk a lot, but they pay in the end."