Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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“Well, then, there—​I don’t like to turn away a customer, particularly an old friend like yourself. I’ll give you thirty pounds for the lot.”

“What! for the clock and plate included? Vell, yes, of course I mean that. Be reasonable, don’t be too extortionate. Ve must all live.”

“Honestly if we can,” said Peace, with a smile.

“Yes, honestly, my son. As honest as the world will let us be. Lord, how people do try to best one another in this world! There, I’ll give you thirty quid. Vat say you?”

“I say I want more, and I won’t take thirty quid.”

“How much more? Tell me, how much more? Now don’t take them avay, I vant to do bishness if I can, even if it is but at a small profit. Ve must live.”

“I’ll take forty. I ought to have fifty at the very least, but I can’t do with less than forty, for I am just now very hard up.”

The Jew shook his head, and said he couldn’t give forty.

After a deal of haggling, a bargain was struck, Peace took four and thirty pounds for goods which were worth considerably more than double that sum in the very lowest market, but he had no alternative, and the rapacious Jew suspected this.