"Nearly twenty years; but only for the last five years as head bookkeeper."
"I suppose you have every confidence in his honesty?" asked the reporter, looking critically at the diagram before him.
"Of course. Such a position is not given to a man unless his record is excellent."
"And yet," observed the reporter reflectively, "opportunity sometimes makes the thief."
"True; but the duty of a bank president is to reduce such opportunities to a minimum," said Dunlap somewhat pompously.
"Quite so," assented Sturgis, "and this you accomplish by——"
"By having the books examined periodically," answered the banker, rubbing his hands together with calm satisfaction.
"I see," said the reporter, who had now finished his sketch. "Do the employés of the bank know when an examination of this kind is to be made?"
"They do not even know that such examinations are made. No one but the accountant and myself are in the secret; for the overhauling of the books is done entirely at night, after the bank is closed."
"Have the books been recently examined?" asked Sturgis carelessly.