He has/had never borrowed money from me.

[diamondcutter]

Lesson 11 One good turn deserves another

I was having dinner at a restaurant when Tony Steele came in. Tony worked in a lawyer's office years ago, but he is now working at a bank. He gets a good salary, but he always borrows money from his friends and never pays it back. Tony saw me and came and sat at the same table. He has never borrowed money from me. While he was eating, I asked him to lend me twenty pounds. To my surprise, he gave me the money immediately. 'I have never borrowed any money from you,' Tony said, 'so now you can pay for my dinner!'

(New Concept English 2, L. G. Alexander, Longman)

I think the sentence in red should be ‘he had never borrowed money from me’ because when the author wrote the article, Tony had borrow money from the author--he asked the author to pay for his dinner. According to the article, I think the cost of Tony’s dinner must have been much more than twenty pounds.
What do you say?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm lost here. What part is Harry playing in all this? Are all three people having dinner together? To whom does He refer in the highlighted sentence?

 

[diamondcutter]

Sorry, I made a mistake. I've corrected it. That 'Harry' should have been 'Tony'.

 

[diamondcutter]

Dear teachers,

Would you please help me?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[jutfrank]

Your suggestion to use He had never borrowed money from me is fine.

Please be very careful that you copy the texts faithfully. I spent several wasted minutes trying to work out who Harry was.

I don't know why you feel that Tony's dinner must have cost more than £20, and I don't see what that has to do with anything, anyway.

 

[diamondcutter]

Thank you very much, Jutfrank.

Do you mean both my suggestion and the origianl sentence are correct?

I will take your advice and try to be as careful as possible.

 

[diamondcutter]

Dear teachers,

Pleas excuse my dullness. I don’t mean to bother you. Since I mainly learn English from books in a non-English environment, if you don’t give me answers which are very very clear, I’ll still feel confused and unassured.

So would you be kind enough to answer my questions as follows？

Are both my suggestion and the original sentence correct? Why?

The original sentence: He has never borrowed money from me.
My suggestion: He had never borrowed money from me.

I’d appreciate it very much if you could help me.

 

[jutfrank]

Are both my suggestion and the original sentence correct?

Yes.

Why?

Your version is correct because the fact was true at the point in time referred to, i.e., the moment when the writer asked to borrow money.
The original version is correct because the fact is still true now, where 'now' is the moment of utterance, i.e., the time the writer wrote those words.