sallying out marketing."

When the maid had cleared the table, Cyril went up to his room and
returned with a large ledger and several smaller books.

"I have, for the last month, Captain Dave, been making up this
stock-book for my own satisfaction."

"Bless me, lad, why have you taken all that trouble? This accounts,
then, for your writing so long at night, for which my dame has been
quarrelling with you!"

"It was interesting work," Cyril said quietly. "Now, you see, sir,"
he went on, opening the big ledger, "here are the separate accounts
under each head. These pages, you see, are for heavy cables for
hawsers; of these, at the date of the last stock-taking, there were,
according to the book you handed to me, five hundred fathoms in
stock. These are the amounts you have purchased since. Now, upon the
other side are all the sales of this cable entered in the sales-book.
Adding them together, and deducting them from the other side, you
will see there should remain in stock four hundred and fifty fathoms.
According to the new stock-taking there are four hundred and
thirty-eight. That is, I take it, as near as you could expect to get,
for, in the measuring out of so many thousand fathoms of cable during
the fifteen months between the two stock-takings, there may well have
been a loss of the twelve fathoms in giving good measurement."

"That is so," Captain Dave said. "I always say to John Wilkes, 'Give
good measurement, John--better a little over than a little under.'
Nothing can be clearer or more satisfactory."