s estate is in his shop;
but I suppose the tradesman that trades wholly thus, is not yet born, or
if there ever were any such, they are all dead.

A tradesman's books, like a Christian's conscience, should always be
kept clean and clear; and he that is not careful of both will give but a
sad account of himself either to God or man. It is true, that a great
many tradesmen, and especially shopkeepers, understand but little of
book-keeping; but it is as true that they all understand something of
it, or else they will make but poor work of shopkeeping.

I knew a tradesman that could not write, and yet he supplied the defect
with so many ingenious knacks of his own, to secure the account of what
people owed him, and was so exact doing it, and then took such care to
have but very short accounts with any body, that he brought up his
method to be every way an equivalent to writing; and, as I often told
him, with half the study and application that those things cost him, he
might have learned to write, and keep books too. He made notches upon
sticks for all the middling sums, and scored with chalk for lesser
things. He had drawers for every particular customer's name, which his
memory supplied, for he knew every particular drawer, though he had a
great many, as well as if their faces had been painted upon them; he had
innumerable figures to signify what he would have written, if he could;
and his shelves and boxes always put me in mind of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, and nobody understood them, or any thing of them, but
himself.

It was an odd thing to see him, when a country-chap, came up to settle
accounts with him; he would go to a drawer directly, among such a number
as was amazing: in that drawer was nothing but little pieces of split
sticks, like laths, with chalk-marks on them, all as unintelligible as
the signs of the zodiac are to an old school-mistress that teaches the
horn-book and primer, or as Arabic or Greek is to a ploughman. Every
stick had notches on one side for single pounds, on the other side for
tens of pounds, and so higher; and the length and breadth also had its
signification, and the colour too; for they were painted in some places
with one colour, and in some places with anther; by which he knew what
goods had been delivered for the money: and his way of casting up was
very remarkable, for he knew nothing of figures; but he kept six spoons
in a place on purpose, near his counter, which he took out when