year; but unless you have a stock-book you do not know whether the
difference between the receipts and expenditure represents profit,
for the stock may have so fallen in value during the year that you
may really have made a loss while seeming to make a profit."

"How can that be?" Captain Dave asked. "I get a fair profit on every
article."

"There ought to be a profit, of course," Cyril said; "but sometimes
it is found not to be so. Moreover, if there is a stock-book you can
tell at any time, without the trouble of opening bins and weighing
metal, how much stock you have of each article you sell, and can
order your goods accordingly."

"How would you do that?"

"It is very simple, Captain Dave," Cyril said. "After taking stock of
the whole of the goods, I should have a ledger in which each article
would have a page or more to itself, and every day I should enter
from John Wilkes's sales-book a list of the goods that have gone out,
each under its own heading. Thus, at any moment, if you were to ask
how much chain you had got in stock I could tell you within a fathom.
When did you take stock last?"

"I should say it was about fifteen months since. It was only
yesterday John Wilkes was saying we had better have a thorough
overhauling."

"Quite time, too, I should think, Captain Dave. I suppose you have
got the account of your last stock-taking, with the date of it?"