say a shopkeeper should be tied down to the
literal meaning of his words in the price he asks, or that he is guilty
of lying in not adhering stiffly to the letter of his first demand;
though, at the same time, I would have every tradesman take as little
liberty that way as may be: and if the buyer would expect the tradesman
should keep strictly to his demand, he should not stand and haggle, and
screw the shopkeeper down, bidding from one penny to another, to a
trifle within his price, so, as it were, to push him to the extremity,
either to turn away his customer for a sixpence, or some such trifle, or
to break his word: as if he would say, I will force you to speak
falsely, or turn me away for a trifle.

In such cases, if, indeed, there is a breach, the sin is the buyer's: at
least, he puts himself in the devil's stead, and makes himself both
tempter and accuser; nor can I say that the seller is in that case so
much to blame as the buyer. However, it were to be wished that on both
sides buying and selling might be carried on without it; for the buyer
as often says, 'I won't give a farthing more,' and yet advances, as the
seller says, 'I can't abate a farthing,' and yet complies. These are, as
I call them, _trading lies_; and it were to be wished they could be
avoided on both sides; and the honest tradesman does avoid them as much
as possible, but yet must not, I say, in all cases, be tied up to the
strict, literal sense of that expression, _I cannot abate_, as
above.[26]

2. Another trading licence is that of appointing, and promising payments
of money, which men in business are oftentimes forced to make, and
forced to break, without any scrupple; nay, and without any reproach
upon their integrity. Let us state this case as clearly as we can, and
see how it stands as to the morality of it, for that is the point in
debate.

The credit usually given by one tradesman to another, as particularly by
the merchant to the wholesale-man, and by the wholesale-man to the
retailer, is such, that, without tying the buyer up to a particular day
of payment, they go on buying and selling, and the buyer pays money upon
account, as his convenience admits, and as the seller is content to take
it. This occasions the merchant, or the wholesale-man, to go about, as
they call it, _a-dunning_ among their dealers, and which is generally
the work of every Saturday. When the merchant comes to his customer the
wholesale-man, or warehouse-keepe