“‘Lawyer—Dimicratic lawyer and polertician.’”
He said he was ruined; that he had been tellin everybody that “nothin was money but gold,” and now if it got out that he swore in the case of Gaskins agin Billot that paper money is money, nobody would believe him hereafter. And, poor man, he cried like a child.
Well, as I had examined what I considered my strongest witnesses, and they dident swear as they talked to the voters, but jist to the contrary, I concluded to end the case and let the squire decide it. I argued that nothin was money but gold, showed how all the noosepapers said so, and how all the lawyers and polerticians said so (except when on oath). I showed how Jobe had delivered good wheat and hay to Billot and took his note for it, how Billot offered Jobe jist common paper money when the note was due; showed how Jobe demanded gold money and nothin else, because gold was the recognized money of the world, and closed by askin the court to give us judgment agin Billot, payable in gold, and to make Billot pay the costs. I sot down.
Jim Patrick got up and said they had no testimony to offer except Jobe Gaskins’ own statement that Billot had offered to pay him with paper money, and now he tendered to the court the same money Billot had offered to Gaskins, and asked for judgment agin Gaskins for the costs.
The squire took the money, counted it and stuck it in his pocket, then hemmed and hawed a minit and said that Billot had made a full legal tender of the amount due Gaskins, as in his court paper money allers had been good and he hoped it allers would be. He then said:
“My judgment is in favor of the defendant Billot, with the costs of this case charged to the plaintiff Gaskins.”
It nearly took my breath.
The costs was $18.60, all told.
The squire said that paper money made by the United States was real money, and if a man offered to pay a debt with it, and the man he offered it to refused it and tried to make him pay gold, he would have to pay the cost for tryin it.