“I should be ashamed to beg, or borrow either,” said Francisco.
“Neither did I get what you see by begging, or borrowing either,” said Piedro, “but by using my wits; not as you did yesterday, when, like a novice, you showed the bruised side of your melon, and so spoiled your market by your wisdom.”
“Wisdom I think it still,” said Francisco.
“And your father?” asked Piedro.
“And my father,” said Francisco.
“Mine is of a different way of thinking,” said Piedro. “He always tells me that the buyer has need of a hundred eyes, and if one can blind the whole hundred, so much the better. You must know, I got off the fish to-day that my father could not sell yesterday in the market—got it off for fresh just out of the river—got twice as much as the market price for it; and from whom, think you? Why, from the very booby that would have bought the bruised melon for a sound one if you would have let him. You’ll allow I’m no fool, Francisco, and that I’m in a fair way to grow rich, if I go on as I have begun.”
“Stay,” said Francisco; “you forgot that the booby you took in to-day will not be so easily taken in to-morrow. He will buy no more fish from you, because he will be afraid of your cheating him; but he will be ready enough to buy fruit from me, because he will know I shall not cheat him—so you’ll have lost a customer, and I gained one.”
“With all my heart,” said Piedro. “One customer does not make a market; if he buys no more from me, what care I? there are people enough to buy fish in Naples.”
“And do you mean to serve them all in the same manner?” asked Francisco.
“If they will be only so good as to give me leave,” said Piedro, laughing, and repeating his father’s proverb, “‘Venture a small fish to catch a large one.’” [306] He had learned to think that to cheat in making bargains was witty and clever.