paying teller. He said: "I think you have made a mistake
in paying me." The cashier stood there, by chance. "No, sir," said he,
"we never make mistakes!" "But," said the gentleman, "you gave me
twenty dollars too much money!" "_No, sir!_" thundered the cashier, "we
_never_ make mistakes!" Not for twenty dollars in cash would that banker
admit that the establishment with which he was connected ever made a
mistake. And you can be assured that

SUCH A SPARTAN SPIRIT WEEDS OUT

most of the ordinary blunders of business. Now if this great rich banker
could not afford to indulge in mistakes, how much less can you, who have
your whole fortune to make, be anything less than strictly accurate in
all your operations? Study the spirit of that banker's answer. Imitate
his horror of an error. He must have had good reasons for that feeling.

A HOMELY EXAMPLE.

A customer comes in from the country. He says: "I have brought a load of
wheat to town to-day--about fifty bushel I should guess. I'll be in
after noon and settle my account with you." Very good; you, the clerk,
hurry to your books, to make out his account. When he comes in, he
glances over it, and says: "Good gracious! you haven't given me credit
for four dollars and seventy-five cents I paid you last May. I
recollect it because I was in town to get a corn-planter when I paid it.
And I've got your receipt, too." Sure enough, there is the receipt,
which you have filled out yourself. And yet you failed to make an entry
of the fact in his account. Shame covers you.

THE FARMER BEGINS TO HAVE SUSPICIONS.

Your employer begins to talk of the fall plowing as soon as he can, but
the farmer goes over to your unscrupulous competitors in business,
relates to them the fact that his scrupulous attention to details has
saved him four dollars and seventy-five cents, and asks their opinion as
to whether or not an attempt were not made to cheat him. His listeners
talk about you in a mild-mannered way--

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.

Off goes your customer in his lumber-wagon, carrying that gross libel
upon your place of business, to fill the prairies and the openings with
its brood of gossiped offspring, until, some day, it comes back that
your employer is a horsethief and has served a term in the penitentiary!

The errors which are often made in handling figures are just as
annoying. It is a trifling