A customer, whether his account be overdrawn or not, may pay in a certain sum to his credit, and request his banker to pay a particular cheque against it. The person who adopts this procedure is invariably somewhat “hard up”; and having issued cheques which, in the aggregate, amount to more than the balance at his credit, or which would, if presented, overdraw his account beyond the agreed sum, he is naturally nervous lest his banker should return one or two of them. Assuming that he has some half-dozen cheques in circulation, but is particularly anxious to pay one to John Smith, who has threatened to sell him up, for £30, and another for £40 to William James for rent, then he should pay £70 to his credit, and write across his paying-in slip: “To provide for my cheques of £30 to John Smith and £40 to W. James specially.” The banker, if he accept the slip, is bound to hold the money against the cheques in question. Present your Cheques at Once. A business man, in order to give himself every chance, will pay all cheques to the credit of his banking account upon the day he receives them from his customers. He has, in the legal sense, until the close of the first business-day following the day he gets the cheque, when, if he like, he can post it to his agent, who has the same time-allowance for presentment, provided the cheque be not drawn upon a bank in his own town. If he delay longer any loss incurred by the drawer through non-presentation will fall upon the payee’s shoulders. For instance, should the bank fail, the payee might be saddled with a bad debt through his delay. A customer who has a doubtful cheque in his possession, and who is anxious to know whether the drawer has funds to meet it, can instruct his banker to forward the cheque in question direct to the drawer’s bankers, with the request that they telegraph back whether or not the cheque is paid. Or he may ask them to wire only in case of non-payment, and so save himself the expense of a telegram. Some companies, when they think a customer will stand it, charge 1s. for doing this; but one should decline to pay more than the price of the telegram, viz., 6d. Returned and Dishonoured Cheques. It does not follow that, because a banker returns a cheque, the money is not there to meet it, as, more often than not, a cheque is sent back for some irregularity in the indorsement, which can be at once put right. It is necessary, therefore, before jumping to conclusions, to carefully examine the words written upon the document. The following are the usual answers given by bankers, with their abbreviations: “R/D” (refer to drawer). Such an answer clearly implies that the cheque has been dishonoured for lack of funds.