paid.

"'The thing is unreasonable a'thegither,' said I; 'here is a man that hasna
paid once himself, and he would come upon me to pay twice! But I'll see him
far enough first!'

"I paid no attention to the letter, and I was summoned to appear before the
writer, and three men that were called the trustees to the bankrupt's
estate. (Dear kens where the estate lay.)

"'Sir,' said they to me, as haughtily as if I had been a criminal before
them; 'wherefore do ye refuse to pay the ninety pounds?'

"'For the best o' a' reasons, gentlemen,' said I, very civilly; 'and that
simply is, because I have paid it already.'

"'What proof can you show for that!' asked the writer.

"'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, N