{"id":32996,"date":"2015-11-22T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T06:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32996"},"modified":"2018-01-15T20:30:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-16T01:30:29","slug":"qotd-bargaining-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/11\/22\/qotd-bargaining-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Bargaining in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

On another occasion I listened in the smoke-room of a German hotel to a small Englishman telling a tale which, had I been in his place, I should have kept to myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t do,\u201d said the little Englishman, \u201cto try and beat a German down. They don\u2019t seem to understand it. I saw a first edition of The Robbers<\/em> in a shop in the Georg Platz. I went in and asked the price. It was a rum old chap behind the counter. He said: \u2018Twenty-five marks,\u2019 and went on reading. I told him I had seen a better copy only a few days before for twenty \u2014 one talks like that when one is bargaining; it is understood. He asked me \u2018Where?\u2019 I told him in a shop at Leipsig. He suggested my returning there and getting it; he did not seem to care whether I bought the book or whether I didn\u2019t. I said:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018What\u2019s the least you will take for it?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I have told you once,\u2019 he answered; \u2018twenty-five marks.\u2019 He was an irritable old chap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said: \u2018It\u2019s not worth it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I never said it was, did I?\u2019 he snapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said: \u2018I\u2019ll give you ten marks for it.\u2019 I thought, maybe, he would end by taking twenty.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe rose. I took it he was coming round the counter to get the book out. Instead, he came straight up to me. He was a biggish sort of man. He took me by the two shoulders, walked me out into the street, and closed the door behind me with a bang. I was never more surprised in all my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the book was worth twenty-five marks,\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it was,\u201d he replied; \u201cwell worth it. But what a notion of business!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel<\/em><\/a>, 1914.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On another occasion I listened in the smoke-room of a German hotel to a small Englishman telling a tale which, had I been in his place, I should have kept to myself. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t do,\u201d said the little Englishman, \u201cto try and beat a German down. They don\u2019t seem to understand it. I saw a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,62,1118,57,41],"tags":[262,948],"class_list":["post-32996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-europe","category-germany","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-culture","tag-jkjerome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8Ac","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32997,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32996\/revisions\/32997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}