"What you give, lady?"
"I won't give anything! I don't want it! What! Do you think I would carry that back home?"
"But you take hold of him; you feel him silk; I think you want to buy. Ver' cheap, only four pound!"
"Four pounds!" I say in French. "Oh, you don't want to sell. You want to keep it. And at such a price you will keep it."
"Keep it!" in a shrill scream. "Not want to sell? Me? I here to sell! I sell you everything you see! I sell you the shop!" and then more wheedlingly, "You give me forty francs?"
"No," in English again. "I'll give you two dollars."
"America! Liberty!" he cries, having cunningly established my nationality, and flattering my country with Oriental guile.
"Exactly," I say, "liberty for such as you if you go there. None for me. Liberty in America is only free to the lower classes. The others are obliged to buy theirs."
He shakes his head uncomprehendingly. "How much you give for him? Last price now! Six dollars!"
We haggle over "last prices" for a quarter of an hour more, and after two cups of coffee, amiably taken together, and some general conversation, I buy the thing for three dollars.