Ho ho!" Mr.Mitchell selected a cigar, lit it, puffed it, and fixed his eye on his demon clerk.
"Now then," he said sharply, "let's have it!" The demon pounced on a Brobdingnagian volume upon the desk and worried it open at a marker.

It had been meant for a ledger, that huge volume; the gray cloth covers bore the legend "N to Z." Ledger it was, of a grim sort, with sinister entries of forgotten sins, the itemized strength or weakness of a thousand men.

The confidential clerk ran a long, confidential finger along the spidery copperplate index of the W's: "Wakelin, Walcott, Walker, Wallace, Walsh, Walters; Earl, John, Peter, Ray, Rex, Roy--Samuel--page 1124." His nimble hands flew at the pages like a dog at a woodchuck hole.
"Here't is--'Walters, Samuel: born '69, son of John Walters, Holland Hill; religion--politics--um-um--bad habits, none; two years Vesper Academy; three years Dennison shoe factories; married 1896--one child, b.
1899.

Bought Travis Farm 1898, paying half down; paid balance out in five years; dairy, fifteen cows; forehanded, thrifty.

Humph! Good pay, I guess." He cocked his head to one side and eyed his employer, fingering a wisp of black silk on his upper lip.
"And the other ?" The second volume was spread open upon the desk.