He never cut them down, although their pay was very high
as they became more and more expert.
"Instead of _books_ he kept _hooks_--two of them. All the bills he owed
he jabbed on one hook, and stuck mems of what was due him on the other.
If he had no tickers ready to deliver when an account came due, he gave
his note for the amount required.
"Then as one bill after another fell due, a bank messenger came with a
notice of protest pinned to the note, demanding a dollar and a quarter
extra for protest fees besides principal and interest. Whereupon he
would go to New York and borrow more funds, or pay the note on the spot
if he happened to have money enough on hand. He kept up this expensive
way of doing business for two years, but his credit was perfectly good.
Every dealer he patronized was glad to furnish him with what he wanted,
and some expressed admiration for his new method of paying bills.
"But, to save his own time, Edison had to hire a bookkeeper whose
inefficiency made him regret for a while the change in his way of doing
business. He tells of one of his experiences with this accountant:
"'After the first three months I told him to go through his books and
see how much we had made.
"Three thousand dollars!" he told me after studying a while. So, to
celebrate this, I gave a dinner to several of the staff.
"'Two days after that he came to tell me he had made a big mistake, for
we had _lost_ five hundred dollars.
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