“Here is the money!” cried the horse-dealer, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a thump.  “Do I get the brown mare for it?  God knows, she’s not worth a penny more!”

“Then keep your money, so that you won’t suffer any loss!” replied the Justice cold-bloodedly.  “Twenty-six is my price, as I have already said, and not a farthing less!  You’ve known me a good many years, Mr. Marx, and you ought to realize by this time that dickering and beating down don’t work with me, because I never take back what I say.  I ask for a thing what it is worth to me, and never overcharge.  So an angel with a trumpet might come down from heaven, but he wouldn’t get the bay mare for less than twenty-six!”

“But,” exclaimed the horse-dealer, provoked, “business consists of demanding and offering, doesn’t it?  I’d overcharge my own brother!  When there is no more overcharging in the world, business will come to an end.”

“On the contrary,” replied the Justice, “business will then take much less time, and for that very reason will be more profitable.  And besides that, both parties always derive much benefit from a transaction involving no overcharge.  It has always been my experience that, when an overcharge is made, one’s nature gets hot, and it results in nobody’s knowing exactly what he is doing or saying.  The seller, in order to put an end to the argument, often lets his wares go for a lower price than that which he had quietly made up his mind to charge, and the buyer, on the other hand, just as often, in the eagerness and ardor of bidding, wastes his money.  Where there is absolutely no talk of abatement, then both parties remain beautifully calm and safe from loss.”

“Inasmuch as you talk so sensibly, you have, I presume, thought better of my proposal,” broke in the receiver.  “As I, have already said, the government wants to convert into cash all the corn due from the farms in this region.  It alone suffers a loss from it, for corn is corn, whereas money is worth so much today and so much tomorrow.  Meanwhile, you see, it is their wish to free themselves from the burden of storing up corn.  Kindly do me the favor, then, to sign this new cash-contract, which I have brought with me for that purpose.”

“By no means!” answered the Justice vehemently.  “For many hundreds of years corn, and only corn, has been paid over from the Oberhof to the monastery, and the receiver’s office will have to content itself with that, just as the monastery has done.  Does cash grow in my fields?  No!  Corn grows in them!  Where, then, are you going to get the cash?”

“You’re not going to be cheated, you know!” cried the receiver.

“We must always stand by the old ways of doing things,” said the Justice solemnly.  “Those were good times when the tablets with the lists of imposts and taxes of the peasantry used to hang in the church.  In those days everything was fixed, and there were never any disagreements, as there are nowadays all too often.  Afterwards it was said that the tablets with the hens and eggs and bushels and pecks of grain. interfered with devotion, and they were done away with.”  With that he went into the house.