(?p?st?a)

Suspicion is a kind of belief that everybody is fraudulent. The suspicious man is the sort of person who sends a servant to market and then sends another to watch him and find out the price he pays. When he carries the money himself, he sits down every hundred yards and counts it over. After he is in bed he asks his wife whether she locked the chest and shut the cupboard, and whether the hall-door bolt was pushed well in. If she answers “Yes!” he gets up, nevertheless, and lights a lamp; naked and barefoot he goes around and examines everything. Even then he finds it hard to go to sleep. When he goes to collect interest, he takes witnesses along, lest his debtors deny the claims. He has his cloak dyed, not by the best workman, but by the fuller who can furnish good security. If any one asks the loan of a wine-set, he prefers not to lend it; but if a member of his family or a near relative wants it, he makes the loan; yet he scarcely does so until he has had it assayed and weighed and has received a guarantee for its safe return. He orders his footman not to fall behind him, but to go in front so that by watching him he may prevent his running away. If a purchaser has bought goods of him and says: “Charge the amount to me; I have no time now to send the money,” he replies: “Do not trouble yourself about it; when you have finished your business, I will go with you and get my pay.”