Paul and Melville went over and over the accounts, vainly searching for the error. But there was no error. The columns seemed to add up quite correctly. So, however, did the deposit slips from the bank. And the tragedy was that the two failed to agree. The bank had a hundred dollars less to the credit of the March Hare than the books said it should have.
In the meantime, at the bottom of Paul's pocket, lay a bill of fifty dollars for publishing expenses. What was to be done? The bill must be paid. It would never do to let the March Hare run behindhand. To begin to run into debt was an unsafe and demoralizing policy.
Paul's father had urged this advice upon him from the first. The March Hare must pay its bills as it went along; then its editors would know where they stood. And so each month the boys had plotted out their expenses and kept rigidly within the amount of cash they had in reserve. They had never failed once to have sufficient money to meet their bills. In fact, their parents had enthusiastically applauded their foresight and business ability.
And now, suddenly and unaccountably, here they were confronted by an empty treasury. What was to be done?
Of course the bill was not large. Fifty dollars was not a tremendous sum. But when you had not the fifty, and no way of getting it, the amount seemed enormous.
Then there was the balking enigma of it. How had it happened?
"If we only knew what we had done with that hundred, it would not be so bad," groaned Melville. "It makes me furious not to be able to solve the puzzle."
"Me, too!" Paul replied gravely.
And worse than all was the humiliation of finding they were not such clever business men as they had thought themselves to be. That was the crowning blow!
"A hundred dollars—think of it!" said Paul. "If it had been twenty-five! But a cool hundred, Mel!"