"I dunno; about a million feet, I reckon."
"Well, you have charged me in my bill for burning half a million more than you made; I want you to correct it."
"Less see the bill. Hm—m—m! this is all right. It's taken off of the meter. That's what the meter says."
"S'pose'n it does; I couldn't have burned more'n you made."
"Can't help that; the meter can't lie."
"Well, but how d'you account for the difference?"
"Dunno; 'tain't our business to go nosing and poking around after scientific truth. We depend on the meter. If that says you burned six million feet, why, you must have burned it, even if we never made a foot of gas out at the works."
"To tell you the honest truth," said I, "the meter was frozen, and I stirred it up with a poker and set it whizzing around."
"Price just the same," said the clerk. "We charge for pokers just as we do for gas."
"You are not actually going to have the audacity to ask me to pay three hundred and fifty thousand dollars on account of that poker?"