MIXING THE FIGURES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1716, 22 November 1887, Page 3

MIXING THE FIGURES

A Sootch tradesman who had amassed, us he believed, £4000, was surprised by his old clerk with a balance-sheet showing his fortune to be £6000. "It oanna be," said the principal : "count agen." The clerk did count again, and again declared the balance to be £6000. The master counted himself, and he also brought out I a surplus of £6000. Time after time be cast np the columns— it was still a six and not a four, that rewarded his labors. So the old merohant, on the strength of his good fortune, modernised his hoaae, and "put money m tbe purae of the carpenter, the painter, and the unholaterer. Still however, ha had a lurking doubt of the existence of the extra £2000 ; bo, one winter night, he sat down to give the co umne, "ouo count mote," At the close of h!s task he jumped up as though he had been galvanised, and rushed through the streets In a shower of rain, to the house of the olerk. The clerk's head, tapped and drowsy, emerged from an attic window, at the Bound of the knocker, to enquire the errand of the midnight visitor, "Who's there ?" he mumbled, "and what dye want?" It'a me ye scoundrel !" exclaimed .his employer ; ." ye've added up the year of our Lord among the pounds."