Andrews v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

*317FRANK, Circuit Judge.

Dickens reports that whenever Mr. Micawber renewed a note, he cheerfully remarked, “That’s another debt paid.” The world is full of Micawbers and of their creditors who are beguiled by their debtors’ optimism. The courts are sometimes more cynical. Here, however, the bonds held by the taxpayers expressly provided that interest thereon might be “paid” in the debt- or’s “securities”; and the taxpayers, in receiving and retaining the scrip, although under protest, must be deemed to have taken it as “payment.” To be sure, the scrip, by its terms, was subject to contingencies,…