Shortchanged (Version 2)
Illustration★★★★A baker in a small country town always bought the butter he used in his bakery from a nearby farmer. One day he suspected that the bricks of butter were not full pound, and for several days he weighed them.
Sure enough, he was right! They were short weight, and he had the farmer arrested.
At the trial, the judge said to the farmer, “I presume you have scales?”
“No, Your Honor,” answer the farmer.
“Then how do you manage to weigh the butter you sell?” asked the judge?
“That’s easily explained, Your Honor,” replied the farmer. “I have balances, and for a weight I use a one-pound loaf of bread, which I buy from the baker.”
Tom R. Kovach, The Saturday Evening Post, 96.
The point
A baker discovers a farmer is selling him underweight butter; when confronted, the farmer reveals he's been using the baker's own bread loaves as his weight standard, creating poetic reciprocal justice.