Oh dear," she continued, about half in earnest, "which road do you think Tom took when he ran away? I may have to go the same route." But I told her there was nothing to be discouraged about; all she needed was one more book specially ruled, which she had not at present, and I would show her how to take stock every evening without leaving her chair, and how to tell at a glance what day, and hour if necessary, any box, barrel or package had been taken in, and how much was used a day, or in an average way, and it would not take up an hour a day to keep it posted to the satisfaction of even such an exacting accountant as Mr. Tatillonner was proving to be.

Accordingly I obtained a blank book of medium size and ruled it in this way:

The Store-Room Issue Book. Issued From Store Room, Kitchen

Kitchen

The Store-Room Issue Book. Date,...............................................188.....

___________________. ___________._____________ Copyrite ,Manufactured and Sold by H.J. John &Bro."Hotel World"Chicago-111

Pastry & Bakery

Dining Room & Pantry

The example shows the half-size of two pages; there must be ruled lines enough to take in the 31 days, and the wider the pages are the more items can be run on the same date line, bringing 3 or 4 items in each division where our example shows but one. The names of articles were placed alphabetically in the pages; thus the first page was headed Almonds, Apples, the last page Wine and Yeast; it was easy to find Ice in the middle of the book when that ar-icle was brought in and weighed, and easy to find Milk when that came in varying quantities thrice or more a day, and easy to set down the number of gallons to the left or right of the column, showing the morning and evening receipts. It was found that there were 200 articles of almost daily issue to be given in these pages, such as Bacon, Barley, Beef,Beans,Brushes, Butter, Buckets; at two to a page it took up 100 pages or 50 leaves of the book for every two or three months. But still not over 50 different things would be issued in one day, and some days not nearly that many, so that there were often only 20 or 30 items to be transcribed from the issue book, and the quickest way was for two persons to act together.

The "Remains" or stock-on-hand column was not necessarily added up daily, but it was found useful to do so as it often reminded the storekeeper of an otherwise hardly remembered duty, to order more of an article that was getting low, as in the example; the addition and subtraction shows only five chickens left on hand for a houseful of people. But the best of it was that after this, the issues being strictly attended to and punctually entered, the amount of stock on hand, even down to the chicken house and potato cellar, could be told from this book on an hour's notice, and the time when any special lot of goods had been received could be told in a moment. Miss Massinger, as I have said, did not hate figures, her tastes rather led her to find pleasure in them, she saw a clearer way before her after that and I never heard any further allu-ions to the departed Tom and his example of running away from the store-room troubles. Mr. Tatillonner, without knowing or caring to know how it came about, found his only cause of complaint removed and finds much to praise in the storekeeper - for she still holds the position, being now in the second year - and they have become great friends.

Sometimes I think he is teaching her the higher branches of bookkeeping, seeing how very close they set their chairs together and how very long it seems to take them to go over one small page of an account book.