See here 1. What arts men use to get a good bargain and to buy cheap.
They not only cheapen carelessly, as if they had no need, no mind for
the commodity, when perhaps they cannot go without it (there may be
prudence in that), but they vilify and run down that which yet they
know to be of value; they cry, "It is naught, it is naught; it has this
and the other fault, or perhaps may have; it is not good of the sort;
and it is too dear; we can have better and cheaper elsewhere, or have
bought better and cheaper." This is the common way of dealing; and
after all, it may be, they know the contrary of what they affirm; but
the buyer, who may think he has no other way of being even with the
seller, does as extravagantly commend his goods and justify the price
he sets on them, and so there is a fault on both sides; whereas the
bargain would be made every jot as well if both buyer and seller would
be modest and speak as they think. 2. What pride and pleasure men take
in a good bargain when they have got it, though therein they contradict
themselves, and own they dissembled when they were driving the bargain.
When the buyer has beaten down the seller, who was content to lower his
price rather than lose a customer (as many poor tradesmen are forced to
do--small profit is better than none), then he goes his way, and boasts
what excellent goods he has got at his own price, and takes it as an
affront and a reflection upon his judgment if any body disparages his
bargain. Perhaps he knew the worth of the good better than the seller
himself did and knows how to get a great deal by them. See how apt men
are to be pleased with their gettings and proud of their tricks;
whereas a fraud and a lie are what a man ought to be ashamed of, though
he have gained ever so much by them.