Cost of a Fly £20.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 2 October 1914, Page 8

Cost of a Fly £20.

A ludicrous accident recently cost a .firm of American grain merchants ' lOOdols. It was found one day i that, according to the books and j ledgers, lOOdols. (about £20) had ' .mysteriously disappeared. Immediately the firm sent for an expert accountant, and paid him far more than that missing" lOOdols. ' to find out what "had happened. j The expert accountant went through all the books. H e checked and counter-checked, referred and compared for a solid seven months, and still there was no explanation of the entire disappearance of that lOOdols. And still the firm were determined to trace it, if it cost them ten times as much. ' One, day the accountant was trying for the heaven-knows-what time 10 dete.t the error, when his pencil happened to touch the figure " 1 ' of a certain entry. To his astonishment the figure promptly snapped in two and skated down the page. Examination showed that the sup- ' posed figure, which had been added up with the rest, and thrown the ac- ) counts out to the extent of 100 dols., was nothing suit the leg of a fly, which had been shut in the Udger and had adhered to the page. ! it had made an entry of -lOdols read 1/lOdols.