 Despite the menu prices for the restaurant food being remarkably low, how were Harvey and Joe met with an outrageous bill of 328 buckos?
GRIFTERS' ASTEROID By H. L. GOLD Harvey and Joe were the slickest con-men ever to gyp a space-lane sucker. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1943. Characteristically, Harvey Ellsworth tried to maintain his dignity, though his parched tongue was almost hanging out. But Joe Mallon, with no dignity to maintain, lurched across the rubbish-strewn patch of land that had been termed a spaceport. When Harvey staggered pontifically into the battered metalloy saloon—the only one on Planetoid 42—his tall, gangling partner was already stumbling out, mouthing something incoherent. In their hectic voyages from planet to planet, the pair of panacea purveyors had encountered the usual strange life-forms. Paying no attention to them, it was carrying a case of liquor in two hands, six siphons in two others, and a broom and dustpan in the remaining pair. The bartender, a big man resembling the plumpish Harvey in build, was leaning negligently on the counter, ordering this impossible being to fill the partly-emptied bottles, squeeze fruit juice and sweep the floor, all of which the native did simultaneously. The interplanetary con-men drank noisily, asked for more, until they had drunk eight glasses. Meanwhile, the bartender had taken out eight jiggers and filled them with whiskey. Harvey and Joe were breathing hard from having gulped the water so fast, but they were beginning to revive. Medical science is unanimous in proclaiming this magic medicine the sole panacea in the entire history of therapeutics." "Yeah?" said the bartender disinterestedly, polishing the chaser glasses without washing them. Our condenser broke down, and we've gone without water for five ghastly days." He came near starving and moved on to Titan. "Mayor takes care of that," replied the saloon owner. "If you gents're finished at the bar, your drinks'll be forty buckos." Water's five buckos a glass. "When there ain't many customers, you gotta make more on each one. It's bitter as some kinds of sin before it's purified. Waddya think—I was chargin' feller critters for water just out of devilment? "Friend," said Harvey, taking out a wallet and counting off eight five-bucko bills, "here is your money. What's fair is fair, and you have put a different complexion on what seemed at first to be an unconscionable interjection of a middleman between Nature and man's thirst." "And chief of police, no doubt," said Harvey jocosely.
 They were charged for services and entertainment.
 They were charged for an insane amount of overhead.  They were charged for services and entertainment.  They didn't notice the additional zeros added on to the prices of the menu items  They were not informed of the tax charged onto the meal.