"I did not intend to show it to him."
"Still he might have seen it. You might have left it on the desk, and a single glance at it would have alarmed him, when, you can see for yourself, the business is paying a large profit."
"I made the statement only for you, and I showed it to you in order to have my blunder pointed out."
"You did perfectly right, Phil, but an accident might have happened," said he, walking to the desk where my sheets were still lying.
He picked them up, tore them into a great many pieces, and threw them into the waste basket.
"At the end of the year we will make out a trial balance together," he added.
I did not like to see the result of so much hard labor destroyed; especially as, by Mr. Whippleton's own showing, the figures would be correct when he produced the missing invoices. But I had my rough draft, which I had carefully copied, in the desk, and I intended to carry this home, in order to ascertain at some future time whether my figures were correct or not. When I obtained the invoices I could tell whether I had made a failure or not in the act of taking a trial balance. I was not satisfied that I was so utterly stupid as my employer made me out to be.
"Those bills ought to have been entered on the lumber book," said I, when the junior partner had disposed of my papers.
"That's of no consequence at all. The lumber book is a humbug," he replied; "I don't believe in it; indeed, I had even forgotten that there was any such book. The firm don't recognize it, and I think it is liable to lead us all into blunders and errors, as it has you."
He went to the other side of the desk, where the objectionable volume lay, turned over its leaves, and glanced at its pages. He was still very nervous, for the effects of his sudden attack of illness appeared not to have left him.