"'Proof, sir,' said I—'here is a line off the man's own hand, acknowledging the payment o' every farthing o' the money.'
"'Let me look at it,' says he.
"So, as honesty never needs to be feared for what it does, I handed him the bit paper. But after looking at it for a moment, he held it up between his finger and thumb, and wi' a kind o' sarcastic laugh, inquired—'Where is the stamp?'
"The sweat broke ower me from head to foot. 'Sir, my wife, Nancy! Is that document, in the handwriting o' the man himsel', not proof positive that I have paid the money?'
"The writer shook his head; and a gentleman that was standing near me, and who was very probably in a similar predicament to myself, said—'Unstamped receipts, sir, may do very well, where ye find a world o' purely honest men—but they winna do where ye arena sure but ye may be dealing wi' a rogue.'
"'Gentlemen!' cried I, 'have ye really the cruelty and injustice to say that I am to pay that money owre again?'
"'Owre again or not owre again,' said the writer, 'ye must pay it, otherwise summary proceedings will be entered against ye. If ye have already paid it in the way ye say, it is only making good the proverb, that the 'simple man is the beggar's brother.'"
"'Oh, confound ye!' cried I, 'for a parcel o' unprincipled knaves—that is exactly what my wife says; and had I followed her advice, I would ne'er hae seen ane o' yer faces.'
"However, the ninety pounds I had to pay again, doun upon the nail; and that was another o' the beautiful effects o' my simplicity. I didna ken how, in the universal globe, I was to muster courage to look my wife in the face again. Yet all that she said was—'O Nicholas! Nicholas!—would ye only be less simple!'
"'Heigho!' said I, 'dinna talk about it, Nancy—I'm owre grieved as it is—I can stand no more!'