"Yes," was the reply.

"Well, did he want to know how many fingers and toes you had?"

The best devised methods of examining a man's credit responsibility I find must be somewhat modified in the case of a woman. In the first place you can not be so direct with a woman. If once alarmed or suspicious, her lips become sealed and it is an expert credit man who can open them.

When a man makes a statement, you are pretty sure he means to say what he does say, whether it is true or not. If what he says proves to be false, you can at least take the satisfaction of stating plainly to him that he is a prevaricator. But often when a woman makes a statement of her business condition you are not "dead sure" whether she has said what she knows is so, or has said what she feels is just as certainly so as if it were really so. I find that many women in business are often unable to give a very reliable statement of their affairs, because they themselves do not possess the information.

Many women keep no books at all and only know what they have made by what money they have left when their bills are paid, or what they have lost by the bills they can not pay.

Sometimes, when they attempt to keep books, their methods mislead themselves and everyone concerned. For instance, one woman's books showed that she owed $1200, while she declared she owed but $250. She could not explain this discrepancy, and I was left the choice of believing her or believing her books, as I might prefer.

Another woman's books showed too little difference between the amount of her expenses and the amount of her sales. Investigation showed that sometimes, when

ever she felt like it, she charged cash purchases of merchandise to expense account.

I know an instance of a large bill of goods being paid for by a woman when the goods had never been received. The mistake was not discovered until some six months afterwards, when a case containing the goods she had paid for was found in a teamster's yard among a lot of empty cases the teamster had purchased of the firm who had sold her the goods. The bill was paid because it was on the monthly statement.

Sometimes, when the books are well kept and the woman's statement of her affairs is perfectly satisfactory, the most unexpected things happen; surprises that the wisest credit man could not foresee.

A woman in a certain state obtained credit by proving that besides her stock in trade she had $500 to her credit in the savings bank of her town. She failed to meet her bills when due, and gave as a reason that she had loaned the $500 that she had in the bank to a very dear friend. I had a long and hard tug to get my money, and the latest authentic report received showed that the dear friend still had the $500.

A woman whom I knew to have $900 on deposit, to meet the mishaps of trade, when I gave her credit, gave me as a reason for not meeting her bills when due, that most of the $900 had been spent to enable a young man to fit for the ministry. I naturally inquired why she gave the money which belonged to me to the young man. Her reply came in a superior tone, "It was not your money and I did not give it to the young man. It was the Lord's money and I gave it to whom it belonged."

The distorted ideas some women have of what constitutes the basis for credit are often amusing in the extreme. For references, old schoolmates and sometimes

quite new friends are brought in; persons with whom the applicant had once attended Sunday School, and the like, but who know as little of the affairs of the applicant for credit as of the kind of references required.

One woman, who had received several bills of goods C.O.D., wrote with the next order, "I think you have now sufficient proof of my honesty and my promptness in paying my bills to give me credit for the future.”

A woman in New Hampshire sent an order and in her letter stated that she had just started in business and would like the goods on our regular terms. "I do not ask or expect any favors; I understand that business is business. I am a thorough business woman and herewith send you as reference the name of my minister."

Another woman wrote for credit as follows: "I would like these goods as soon as possible. I am president of the Woman's Club in our village. When asked for an interview she indignantly declined, saying that such a request reflected upon her honesty, which, as president of the Woman's Club, she would not tolerate from any

one.

A most curious thing illustrating a woman's ideas of business was the case of one who took a guaranty to have signed by her father. The guaranty came back for just the amount of the bill purchased, was signed by the woman herself with her own name, and with the guaranty was enclosed a post-office order for the full amount of the bill. What she imagined the guaranty was for, I have never found out.

In reply to requests for payment, we often receive replies more curious than satisfactory. A very common one is, "Yours received. I will send you some money as soon as convenient. Thanking you for past favors, etc.' This is evidently supposed by the writer sufficient

to meet all requirements in the case and also to have the true business ring. One woman, much in arrears with her bills, and who had been requested several times to remit, wrote: "Here's your money. I could have sent it before but I hated to part with it and I hate to part with it now." Now these things are all true and all in my own experience, but if they were taken as the basis upon which to form an opinion of the business ability of women, that is, of their natural capacity, they would be wofully misleading.

Most things are relative in this world and we shall therefore arrive at the fairest estimate of women in business by a comparison of them with men in business.

Speaking in a general way, a man goes into business because he wants to, a woman because she must. A man goes into business for life, a woman until something better or worse turns up. "Woman's business is of her life a thing apart, while it is a man's whole existence."

These facts in themselves are sufficient to account for the whole difference, but the chief reason remains to be given. As a rule, a man comes to the exigencies of business well trained. From the cradle to the threshold of his business career he is in a course of training. Rich or poor, in this country he must be trained. If necessary almost everything is sacrificed for the training of the boy, and if there is no one to train him he must train himself, for no one expects anything from an untrained man.

But a girl until very lately, too lately to be generally effective as yet, has gone on to womanhood untrained for business, until she appears before the credit man with "all her imperfections on her head."

On the one hand we have the well trained, well prepared man, on the other the inexperienced, unequipped, untrained woman.