in
earnest, he shall pay the merchant from whom he bought the said goods
according to the bargain made." But a penny sufficed. Noyes, the
Attorney-General of Charles I., is emphatic on this point. "If," he
says in his "Maxims," "the bargain be that you shall give me two pounds
for my horse, and you do give me one penny in earnest, which I do
accept, this is a perfect bargain." The impression left upon one's mind
is that the most important contracts as well as the most trifling
dealings were settled by the exchange of God's Penny or some equivalent
ceremony.

Now, it is evident on the face of it that the transactions must have
taken place in the presence of witnesses; otherwise a man who had made
an awkward bargain would have found it easy to escape from his dilemma
by denying that he had either given or received the penny. In early
times, before writing became a common accomplishment, and when, as now,
men might be eager to clinch a bargain without loss of time, it was
desirable in the interests of common honesty that such agreements should
be made in the light of day and in the face of the world. This custom
appears to have continued to a late date. Thus, if O'Keeffe the
dramatist may be believed, there was in the centre of Limerick Exchange
a pillar with a circular plate of copper, about three feet in diameter,
called "the nail," on which the earnest of all Stock Exchange bargains
had to be paid. At Bristol there are said to have been four pillars
called "the nails" in front of the Exchange, the purpose being the same;
and similarly, at Liverpool, bargains were completed on a plate of
copper, also called "the nail," and standing in front of the Exchange.
It is probable, however, as Mr. Gordon observes, that, the phrase
"payment on the nail" did not originate from circumstances like these,
but was an adaptation of the Latin _super unguem_ or the French _sur
l'ongle_, by which is meant "paying down into a man's hand." It might
thus stand for a bargain the opposite of that of which God's Penny was
the usual symbol. It appears to have been the custom at Ipswich in 1291
for traders not to make writings or tallies if two witnesses were in
attendance to prove that the undertaking was to pay on a near day _ou
freschement sur le ungle_. The notion of immediate payment is still
conveyed by the expression, and would cover the entire amount, not
merely God's Penny. However, that payment was undoubtedly made "on the
nail;" hence