To think that the possibility of a real fight against the mail-order houses, and the certainty of checking credit losses, should be knocked in the head by one man who, because he happened to be a crook himself, thought everybody else was!
CHAPTER X
CURBING CREDIT CUSTOMERS
The next evening, Jock McTavish and I had a long pow-wow over a plan to check credits. It is always a good idea to talk over such matters with an accountant, and Jock was some accountant, in spite of having come from "Doomfreeze" as he called it.
In the morning I took a form over to the printers with instructions to have it printed on 4 × 6-in. cards. I had an old cabinet that just took that size—and besides Jock said it was better than the 3 × 5-in. size. He said, "Most card indices, run on a 3 × 5-in. card, are crowded. The card is really too small except for such simple uses as an address index. The result is that the small cards soon get so cluttered up with notes and additions as to be difficult to read. Better use the 4 × 6-in. size, and give yourself room to write all you want and still keep it in order."
Jock glared at me when he said that, for he considered that I was careless in my bookkeeping just because I carried charges on scraps of paper till evening and then entered them all at once.
We decided that, starting on the first of the next month, we would make every customer wanting credit give us the following information, and sign it.
This is a copy of the form:
| CHARGE CUSTOMER NUMBER ................ | ||
| Please open a charge account with | ||
| M | ||
| Lives at | Street | |
| In business as | ||
| At | Street | |
| Works for | ||
| Class of goods mostly used | ||
| Maximum amount of credit desired | ||
| Will pay bill on | ||
| The above particulars are correct and agreeable to me. | ||
| Date | Signed | |