THE BITER BITTEN.
Restaurants, like hotels, are the object of the constant attention of swindlers, though the operations are conducted on a smaller scale. Some of these persons are nominally respectable.
A bank clerk, with a fair salary and respectable connections, was in the habit of patronizing a fashionable restaurant, partaking of sumptuous lunches and dinners, and evading full payment, under pretence that he had forgotten his pocket-book, or had omitted, in the hurry of business, to provide himself with small change, etc. Thus, if his check called for one dollar he would pay sixty cents, but invariably forgot upon the next, or any succeeding day, to 'settle' the balance due of forty cents. This 'little game,' so profitable to himself, was carried on for some time triumphantly, but retribution came at last, and unexpectedly and very cleverly. The clerk, seeing how matters stood, commenced to keep an account on a piece of paper of the sums due and sums paid on each successive day at his establishment by this ingenious customer, and on one occasion, when the bank clerk had deposited his check for one dollar and a quarter and a ten dollar note in payment upon the counter (as he wished on this particular occasion to procure some small change for his own purposes), the clerk quietly took the note and then handed out two dollars and twenty cents in change. 'There must be some mistake,' said the bank clerk. 'Oh! none at all.' said the cashier. 'Did I not hand you a ten dollar note?' 'You did, sir.' 'And did not my check call for one dollar and a quarter?' 'It did, sir.' 'Then where is my change?' asked the bank clerk. 'It is there, sir' replied the cashier, pointing to a piece of paper which he handed to the astonished bank clerk. 'What is this paper?' 'It is your account.' 'My account!' 'Yes, sir, you will find it correct in every particular,' said the cashier; 'I will go over the items with you. On such and such a day your check called for such and such a sum; you paid only so and so, leaving such and such balance. The next day you ordered so and so, only paid so much, and left, of course, you see, this balance. Altogether, sir, you owe the establishment, as back balances due for food and liquors, up to date, just seven dollars and a half. I have taken out this amount, and you will find the change correct.'
"Words were useless—the bank clerk was outwitted, and left in disgust, and from that day to this has never set foot inside of that restaurant again."