A Business Career

XXIII

150 Miss Pearce promptly carried out her part of the proposed plan. Stella in turn dictated to her friend everyevening certain letters. But Stella never again lost sight of Truscott's admonition of secrecy,and while Miss Pearceknewnothing about the oil business, and would therefore be unable to connect or recognize the importance of detached pieces of information, Stella nevertheless felt it best to be on the safe side, and carefully avoidedthe subjectof the new enterprise, in the letters she dictated to Miss Pearce, as a still further precaution changing names and dates and details of the business, and substituting others that would answer equallywellfor business practice. At the end of several weeks Stella was informed one evening that MissPearcehad been called out of town to attend the death of a near relative.Sheleft her regardsfor Miss Smith. During their brief association Stella had learned a great deal about the theory of bookkeeping. What knowledge Miss Pearce had acquired of shorthand, or other matters, Stellawas not to learn until later. XXIII. The volume of correspondence in regard to the new enterprise kept Stella sobusily employed that for some time she only perfunctorily footed the daily statements turned in by Mr. Ross and handed to her for checking.When there came a lull of a day or two in the letter-writing, she gave them a little more attention. These statements werein the nature of daily reports 15l of accounts payable, and were drawn up merely for Mr. Truscott's information between the quarterly balance sheets. Stella had gone over the items for several consecutive days, when a second time she became obscurely conscious of something wrong. An examination of the statements for a week back, revealedno discrepancy,but Stellawasstill unsatisfied . But there was nothing on which to base a definite complaint to Mr.Truscott,and shewould not riskthe mortification of havingher doubts declared groundless. "If I were a better bookkeeper," she thought, "I could put my finger on the place; or, if I could see Mr. Ross's books, I believe I could find it now." It was on a Saturdaythat Stella became awareof these perturbations in the orbit of Ross's system of accounts. So strong was her impression that it soon became a fixed idea, which weighed upon her mind allday, and even at night would not be dismissed. Shewent to bed early,but layawake until long after midnight, running over in her mind the various hypothesesby which to account for her suspicion. When she finally fell asleep, it was to dream that she had examined Ross's books and discovered glaring irregularities. So vivid was the dream that she awoke to find herself trembling with excitement, but unable to recall the slightest detail of what had the moment before seemed so clear. Shewentto church next morning, and allthrough the service footed columns of figures and balanced debits against credits . It occurred to her too, while the minister was reading the prayers, that Sunday afternoon would be an excellent time to 152 examine Ross's books and compare them with the last few statements. Stella had been brought up to respect the Sabbath, but with stress laid upon the idea that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath;and shethought it could not be wrong to spend an hour of it in serving her employer by ferretingout a fraud. It wasa fair application of the parable of pulling one's neighbor's ox out of a pit. The confidence reposed in her by Truscott had unconsciously moderated Stella's opinions of her employer, and the thought that she might do something to please him gave her a thrill of pleasure which she ascribed to the mere approbation of conscience for duty performed. She would not have admitted to herself any other possible reason for her interest in the affairs of one who had wronged her family sodeeply. It was easy for Stella to act upon this idea. The El Dorado Building was only a pleasant walk from her boarding-house. The only drawback was that the elevators were not run on Sunday afternoons. The toilsome journey up seven flights was not a pleasing prospect, but was offset by the consideration that this fact would probably leave the office deserted. The clerks, she had learned from Johnnie, sometimes went down on Sunday mornings, to catch up their work or kill time in...