Krilof and His Fables/The Merchant

"Come here, Andrew, my brother! Where have you got to? Come here, quickly, and admire your uncle's doings. Deal as I do, and you'll never suffer loss." Thus in his shop spoke a Merchant to his nephew. "You know that remnant of Polish cloth—the one we have had on our hands so long, because it was old, and damp, and rotten? Well, I've just passed it off for English. Here is a hundred-rouble note I have just this instant got for it. Heaven must have sent a fool this way."

"Just so, uncle, just so," replied the nephew; "only I'm ​not quite sure as to which was the fool. Just look here; you'll see you've taken a forged note."

To cheat!—the Merchant cheated: there's nothing won­derful in that. But if one looks around in the world a little higher than where the shops are, one sees that even there people go on in the self-same manner. Almost all of them are occupied in everything by the same calculation; and that is, "How can one man best succeed in cheating another?"