"Did this come out of the shop?"
"Yes."
"And this?... And those chairs?... And the sofa?"
She did not understand why he asked. But he soon explained himself. He said that all this furniture was taken out of the shop, and it therefore belonged to the firm—or at any rate could not be considered as her private property.
"A partnership is a partnership," he added sententiously.
"But it was ages before the partnership. And all the things were paid for by me."
"No, not paid for," he said quickly. "Not paid for in cash—just a matter of writing down a debit somewhere and a credit somewhere else, and saying it was accounted for. But from the point of view of the shop, that's a bogus transaction."
"How absurd!"
"No, not absurd—common sense. The shop never got a penny profit, and it seems to me that—"
"Oh, I won't dispute it with you. What is it that you want done?"