The Price Can't
Tell
by Xi Yang
Just after
lunch, David was about to take a nap when there
was a knock on the door. Looking through the
cat’s eye, he saw a strange man in uniform
standing outside. “Hello! But I am sorry I
don’t know you!” he shouted as he
opened the door.
“Hello!”
the man replied. “I am from the local
Broadcasting and TV Station. It is said that you
don’t have a good TV signal here. Our head
told me to fix a better TV Symbol Amplifier on
your TV set.”
Hardly had
David opened the door, when the man came in. He
walked directly towards the TV set. He quickly
took an amplifier out his bag and fixed it on the
TV. Then he turned to David. “In order for
you to enjoy the TV programmes, our head ordered
us to fix all the amplifiers in two days. You
know, it is no easy job. Besides, this time it is
very cheap; we just charge you the cost: twenty
pounds each.”
“Excuse
me, but is it possible to not have it fixed?”
David put in. “We had our TV amplifier
changed only three months ago.”
“It
doesn’t work well though, does it?” he
said persuasively. “That is why I have come
again.”
“It is
nice of you, but I am worried that this one
won’t work well either,” David went on.
“Could I not have it fixed this time?”
“No!”
the man replied angrily. “No excuse should
be given, for it is a universal order.”
David had no
choice but to pay him the money.
Just before
dinner, while reading the evening paper, David
sat down in his arm chair. At the very moment,
there came a sweet voice at the door: “Good
evening, sir. I will help fix an amplifier for
you.”
“Thanks,
but we have already had an amplifier fixed on our
TV set,” David replied.
“Oh, dear,
that was a scam. Was it a man? ”
“Yes, a
man of about thirty-five,” David responded.
“I am
very sorry, sir. It is our fault, for he has
cheated so many people,” the voice explained,
“but fortunately, this afternoon, the police
have arrested him. They have made it known to the
public that the amplifiers he fixes do not work
so well as ours.”
Her words
encouraged David to open the door.
“Thanks a
lot.” She smiled at him, with an amplifier
in her hand. “Look, this is our new product.
It is of best quality: carefully made and it has
life long.”
“What
does it cost?” David tried to test if this
was also a scam.
“Oh, it
will cost you forty pounds. If you don’t
believe me, please call our office to make sure
of it,” she said.
David
hesitated for a while. One is half as
expensive as the other. Just as the saying goes,
no cheap things are good. So her product is
better. Ok, I will take hers to change for his,
thought David to himself. “Ok. I will take
it,” David said.
And to his
great regret, a few days later, when David looked
through the evening paper, he noticed that the
man and the lady, husband and wife, were both
cheats, who had been caught in a residence in the
town.
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