This highly instructive and, we hope, true story was published in the book by Arkady Timofeyevich Averchenko, *The Satirikon Members’ Expedition to Western Europe: Yuzhakin, Sanders, Mifasov, and Krysakov*.
In addition to Averchenko, Georgy Landau also worked on the text.
The book was first published in the magazine *Novy Satirikon* in 1915.
Once, in Kharkiv, I went into a German store to buy a hat.
“How much is this hat?” I asked.
“Ten rubles,” said the shopkeeper.
“All right, wrap it up. Here’s 25 rubles—please give me my change.”
“Here you go.”
“Wait a minute!…” I need 15 rubles in change, but you’re giving me 18. You made a mistake in my favor.
—No, I didn’t make a mistake. The thing is, the hat only costs 7 rubles, and I can’t charge more for it…
“But why did you say 10 earlier?”
“I thought you’d haggle—Russians always haggle. I would’ve knocked off 3 rubles.” But since you’re not haggling—I can’t very well charge more for it…
So that’s the story. But if Russian merchants weren’t such swindlers, it wouldn’t even have occurred to me to admire the German hatmaker’s actions.German precision, German methodicalness—it all drives a true Russian up the wall.
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