Herbert Allen Giles

“ I could not think, Sir, of parting with my goods at your price.”
“What is that you are saying, Sir?” cried the soldier. “Although not in the trade myself I can tell superior from inferior articles and am not likely to mistake one for the other. And to pay a low price for a good article is simply another way of taking money out of a man's pocket.”
“Sir,” retorted the shop-keeper, “if you are such a stickler for justice as all that, let us say half the price you first mentioned, and the goods are yours. ”

“ Trade could not be carried on at all if all the advantages were on one side and the losses on the other; neither am I more devoid of brains than the ordinary run of people that I should fail to understand this principle and let you catch me in a trap.”
So they went on wrangling and jangling, the stall-keeper refusing to charge any more and the runner insisting on paying his own price, until the latter made a show of yielding and put down the full sum demanded on the counter, but took only half the amount of goods. ”

“ Imagine that, instead of preferring to buy things at low prices, men habitually preferred to give high prices for them; and imagine that, conversely, sellers rejoiced in getting low prices, instead of high ones.―Herbert Spencer. ”