alarmed.

The keeping a cash-book is one of the nicest parts of a tradesman's
business, because there is always the bag and the book to be brought
together, and if they do not exactly speak the same language, even to a
farthing, there must be some omission; and how big or how little that
omission may be, who knows, or how shall it be known, but by casting and
recasting up, telling, and telling over and over again, the money?

If there is but twenty shillings over in the money, the question is,
'How came it there?' It must be received somewhere, and of somebody,
more than is entered; and how can the cash-keeper, be he master or
servant, know but more was received with it, which is not, and should
have been, entered, and so the loss may be the other way? It is true, in
telling money there may have been a mistake, and he that received a sum
of money may have received twenty shillings too much, or five pounds too
much--and such a mistake I have known to be made in the paying and
receiving of money--and a man's cash has been more perplexed, and his
mind more distracted about it, than the five pounds have been worth,
because he could not find it out, till some accident has discovered
it;[33] and the reason is, because not knowing which way it could come
there, he could not know but some omission might be made to his loss
another way, as in the case above mentioned.

I knew, indeed, a strong waterman, who drove a very considerable trade,
but, being an illiterate tradesman, never balanced his cash-book for
many years, nor scarce posted his other books, and, indeed, hardly
understood how to do it; but knowing his trade was exceedingly
profitable, and keeping his money all himself, he was easy, and grew
rich apace, in spite of the most unjustifiable, and, indeed, the most