"Sorry I can't accommodate you. But I haven't a yard in the store."
"What?" Lladd looked blank.
"No. I have sold off the entire lot, and concluded not to import any
more of that class of goods."
"Ah? I supposed they were still on hand."
"No, I placed them in the hands of Miller, and he has worked them
all off for me at a considerable advance on former prices. He
notified me, a week ago, that the lot was closed out, and rendered
account sales at twelve and a half per piece."
Lladd said all this seemingly unconscious that every word he was
uttering fell like a blow upon his old customer. But he understood
it all very well, and had caught the hard bargain maker in a trap he
little dreamed had been laid for his feet.
Eldon stammered out some half coherent responses, and took his
departure with more evidences of his discomfiture in his face and
manner than he wished to appear. He had, in fact, been paying twelve
dollars and a half for the very goods he had sent back because he
couldn't get them for ten dollars, at six months credit.
Eldon did not understand how completely he had overreached himself,
until a part of his establishment had been idle for days, and he had
been compelled to go to New York, and purchase some fifty pieces of
the goods he wanted, for cash, at twelve dollars per piece, a price
that he is still compelled to pay, as neither Lladd nor any other
importing house in the city has since ordered a case from abroad. So
much for driving a hard bargain.