Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-05

LIZ Il IL clean ssasserea me:
Written Cor The Star.
VERY romantic. Very romantic" said
the modest man with the amably apprecia-
tive manner, as he looked at the soldier
from the Philippines and the Washington
correspondent ard the first mate of the New
York Frisco clipper in undsguised admra-
ton.
They had been telling stories. Then. be-
Ing polite persons, they demanded one from
him.
"Of course, l haven't ever had anything
like these experiences of yours happen to
me-. said the modest man. I'm only an ex-
pert accountant. you know. and in my line
we just grind through sets of books and get
muddled over figures. SO probably l could
hardly tell anything that would interest
men like you.
A polite murmur of dissent encouraged
him, and he went on:
For instance. I've just finished going
through the books of a New York concern
that failed recently owing pile of money.
A good many big business men were hit
hard by the failure but what hit most OF
them harder than the financial loss was the
fact that the concern had opened its books
to them freely whenever it asked for credit.
and each time showed excellent balances.
OF course, a thing like that bOthers mer-
chant. because a good part of the business
of making money nowadays is to tumble TO
new ways of getting stuck before you re
stuck Having been stuck before they tum
bed this time the next best thing for them
to do was to find out what the game was, 50
1t couldn't be played on them again.
so they hired me to look over the books.
| ran over the balances for half an hour or
so, and everything looked so straight that l
would have passed the business as being in
frst-Class condition if l hadn't known bet
ter The money owed to them, according
to the books was nearly hundred thousand
dollars more than the money they owed TO
others, and the accounts were all with ex-
cellent houses. 1t clean staggered me for a
little while.
A Very Simple Scheme.
But l turned to the account with the
house that had hired me to look over the
books and the whole secret was revealed.
The ledger showed that my clients owed
ths bankrupt concern S9.o3o, whereas, of
course. the truth just the other way.
And so it ran all through that set of books.
The swindlers had Simply kept their books
in an order reverse to the regular practice.
They had posted their debts in the column
that all other business houses use for their
credits. and vice-versa. OF course. every
credit man who had looked over their bal
ances was almost bound to be fooled.
1T simple trick. and mighty
cessful one, both for getting credit and
escaping criminal prosecution; for they
calmly alleged that they didn't know that
that was not the right way to KEEP books,
and they pointed 10 the fact that the
countants Who had examined them could
have seen for themselves how th,, business
stood if they had really examined instead
of merely looking over the balances.
THAT was true. But. of course. every
body is aware that few business men can
afford TO spend days in going the books
ui a firm that asks for credit and that the
rule is to accept the balances. because the
balances are bound to show the true state
OF the firms business unless the boo,,s have
been falsiiied, which would render the per-
petrator liable 10 prosecution. Now in this
case the books hadn't been 'falsiad The
balances plainly showed a loss Of d h inbred
thousand dollars. but everybody who locke d
at them thought that they showed that
much profit because they We're in the col
umn where profits are commonly carried.
ITO prosecute them for making such a
mistake would have been rather difficult,
SO in the end the creditors took what they
could get, and the swindlers went to
other city and began life over again with a
large nest egg. l wonder what their mex.
trick Will be.
II suppose that I'm boring you" said he,
alphabetically.
But as he wasn't and they demanded
more stories he continued
Not All Crooked Accounts.
Naturally. the greatest part of an
pert accountants business will seem to you
to he the unravelling of crooked accounts
and the discovery of cheating methods. But
that isn't so. Some of the hardest accounts
that I've been called in to clear up were
accounts kept by men who were actually
cheating themselves because they didn't
make their entries right. and when it came
10 a showdown they couldn't prove that
they had the good business that they really
did have.
The queerest and in all ways the most
delightful thing came to my knowledge
some yea$s ago. In one of the smaller side
streets north of the city hall in New York
q dear old lriShman kept queer. dusty.
cobwebby old dive of barroom. where the
customers sat around on beer kegs and
boxes and drank the best liquor that ever
sold in a barroom in New York. The
old man used to say: 1 drink my own
LIQUOR and | love my health too much To
drink any except the best.
''He made barrel of money. and after
about twenty years. what with real estate
and other Investments. he figured that he
was worth a good bit more than million
dollars Then he decided to retire. and sold
his old place to his two bartenderS, who
had started with him boys. They paid
him a good price. but nothing like what he
could have had If he had accepted the of
fers that were made by outsiders. But he
refused TO listen To anything: Away, away
wild ye.' he said Them two boys o mine
helped me get rich, and it's them that'u
get it
They We're Irishmen, too. and just the
same kind the old man. He told us a
lot about how ne was going to enjoy him
self after he sold out; how he was going
travelling and never see the old dirty street
again: but two days after the deed of sale
was signed he was back in the place, and
from that time until his death he could be
found there almost every day. sitting at
little battered desk that was perched on
dry goods box in Cubhy hole OF snug
gerry marked Private Office There he tin
I4hn sly
orally winding up with an oh. the divvle
fly away wild figures, after he had smeared
himself literally with ink.
Nothing to Show Amount of Business
1T was the divvle fly away wild fig
urcs.' indeed. with him. For instance.
When the sale was berg closed there
wusn't a scrap OF paper to show what the
buSir ess amounted to. All the accounts
that the old man had were a small noun
tain of receipted bills stuck a rusty
hc OK on the wall. Some of them were yell