One traveler, while in the port of Shanghai, heard a loud scream near his boat. Leaning out of the boat, he saw a man in a nearby junk holding the pigtail of another man who was floundering in the water. The one in the junk lowered the other's head under the water, and then abruptly pulled him to the surface. Both shouted something, and everything was repeated again.
The traveler called the rowing boy and asked what was happening. The boy listened for a moment, then laughed and said:
- Nothing special, sir. The one at the top demands sixty yuan for salvation, and the one in the water only gives forty.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru