Tokubei, a clerk at the Hiranoya, a soy sauce shop in Uchihonmachi, Osaka, was his master's nephew and was valued for his diligent work. Tokubei had a lover, Ohatsu, a courtesan of the Tenmaya in Kitashinchi.
One summer day, at a teahouse in the grounds of Ikutama Shrine, Ohatsu, who was being taken around the Kannon temples by a country customer, happened to see Tokubei and called him over. When Ohatsu, seeing him after so long, reproached him, "Why didn't you come to see me?", Tokubei told her of the troubles he had been through.
His master had planned to marry Tokubei to his own wife's niece and set him up with a shop. When Tokubei, thinking of Ohatsu, refused, it turned out his stepmother had already accepted the betrothal money, two kanme of silver, on her own. Tokubei went to his stepmother in the country and at last got the silver back. But his master, angry, told him, "Return the silver within seven days. And then leave Osaka."
Yet Tokubei had lent that precious silver to his close friend Kuheiji, an oil merchant, who had asked for it "for just three days."
Just then Kuheiji came by with his companions. When Tokubei asked him to return the silver, Kuheiji played innocent: "I don't remember borrowing any silver." When Tokubei showed the bond, Kuheiji insisted, "That seal is one I reported lost. You must have picked it up and forged the bond."
Tokubei grabbed at him, but he was one against many, and Kuheiji's companions beat him and trampled him. Branded before everyone as a criminal who had forged a bond, Tokubei said through his tears, "To clear this shame, there's nothing for it but to die and prove my innocence," and left. Ohatsu was pushed into a palanquin by her customer and went back weeping.