“I think it would be a good plan for you to get somebody to do your trading,” replied Jessie. “You gave seventy-five cents for that flimsy cravat, last week, and I’ll engage to buy the silk and make a better one for one-half the money.”
“Oh well, don’t say another word about that,” replied Oscar, whose cravat speculation was not a very pleasant thing to dwell upon. “What can’t be cured must be endured. But I wont get shaved in that way again, for I’ve engaged you to do my shopping. And remember you must beat them down just as you would for yourself.”
“But I don’t make a practice of beating the shopkeepers down, for myself,” said Jessie. “If a man asks more for a thing than I can afford to give, I tell him so; and if he has a mind to offer it for less, very well, but if he doesn’t, I can’t trade.”
“Yes, you understand how to do it,” said Oscar, with a chuckle.
“Do you call that beating a man down, Mrs. Page?” inquired Jessie.
“No, I think that is fair enough,” replied Mrs. Page. “I don’t approve of beating a man down below a fair price, on the one hand, and I don’t approve of giving more for an article than it is worth, on the other. I try to act on these principles, when I am trading. If I can’t afford to pay a fair price for a thing, I conclude that I can’t afford to buy it.”
“That is just the way I feel,” added Jessie. “But to tell the truth, I was almost ashamed to take that dress pattern, although I don’t think I was to blame. It came to just nine shillings, and there was nothing else in the store cheaper, that suited me. But I could not afford to go over a dollar for a dress, and I told Mr. Simpson so. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it was no matter about the money now—I could pay any time when I had it.’ I told him I made it a rule never to run in debt for anything. Then he said I might have the dress for eight and three pence—”
“You mean a dollar and thirty-seven cents—we have no shillings and pence in our currency,” interrupted Marcus, who always set his face against this common but very un-American way of reckoning.
“Yes, a dollar and thirty-seven,” continued Jessie, “and then he said he’d take a dollar and a quarter, which was just what the goods cost him. But I told him I could not go over a dollar, and then he proposed to split the difference, and let me have it for a dollar and nine pence—I mean a dollar and twelve cents. But the trimmings would make the price count up so, that I concluded I couldn’t go one cent over a dollar, and I started off, and got as far as the door-steps, when he called me back, and told me I might have it for a dollar. I had no idea at first that he would let me have it at that price, and I didn’t ask him to take off a cent, nor think of beating him down; but I declare I felt really ashamed, when he called me back. If it cost him a dollar and a quarter, it seems mean for me to buy it for a dollar. What do you think of it, Mrs. Page—did I do wrong?”
“No, under the circumstances I can’t say that you did wrong,” replied Mrs. Page. “If you could not afford to give over a dollar, it was right for you to stop at that mark; and if Mr. Simpson fell of his own accord to that price, that was his own affair. If you had had plenty of money, or if you had coaxed him down to a dollar, the case would have been different.”