A TRADING STORY. 



75 



make a little money. Most of them consider it best to let well 

 enough alone, and having earned sufficient to support them through 

 the winter, the rest looks after itself, while the time is then passed 

 in "chatting" and smoking. 



A curious story is told which shows how some are really 

 incapable of keeping a perfectly understood account of their own 

 money. A certain trader offered for a piece of valuable fur forty- 

 live dollars in American money ; the native thought the exchange 

 over for some time and finally shook his head and said that he 

 could not sell for less than ten pounds cash. Now ten pounds you 

 remember is forty dollars, or five dollars less than the original offer. 

 The wily trader in turn shook his head as if in hesitancy, but fi- 

 nally said that he would accept the offer, while the native went off 

 chuckling, if I may use the word, that he had made the trader 

 come up to his price. 



PtUYi 



