It required many hours of labour from the head teachers before it reached the treasurer: a skilful financier was the treasurer who could complete his share in a day. At the office in Whitehall there was an army of clerks, whose duty it was to examine Form IX. and to hunt for errors and omissions. I have heard them compared with the railway men at important junctions, who tap the carriage wheels with a hammer in search of flaws or fractures; and, according to popular rumour, receive as much as half-a-sovereign if they detect a fault. But it was alleged that in the case of the clerks the reward was as low as sixpence; this, I feel sure, was a libel on the liberality of the Department. Their Lordships encouraged accuracy by a printed warning to the effect that any mistake might involve a delay of six weeks in the payment of the grant; and as the sum involved might be £1,000, or more, and as interest on an overdraft at the bank might be running on (with a possible Bank Rate of from five to ten per cent.) this was a serious consideration. It is often said that the Clergy are bad men of business. If this means that they have a habit, which they share with widows, and other narrow-incomed persons, of investing in speculative undertakings of the wild-cat type, I have nothing to say to the contrary. But when we get beyond this, let one who has officially been a _malleus monachorum_ for many years enter a protest. In the ordinary local affairs, and especially in the control of public meetings, they are as a rule superior to the average layman, simply because they have more experience. And for this reason they--and I emphatically include the clergy of the Church of Rome--were able to fill up Form IX. with an ease to which the unhallowed lawyer or land agent never attained. It was a solicitor who in two successive years presented me with a balance sheet showing a surplus on both sides of the account: it was an estate agent who--but let sleeping dogs lie. When Form IX. was approximately finished, it was tentatively offered to the Inspector, and nearly all classes of managers were grateful for suggestions of improvement. The benevolent Inspector would run his eye down the pages, and would say, “Just put in ‘NO’ twelve times in these columns, and ‘YES’ thirty-six times down there;” and the thing was done. It mattered little what was thereby affirmed or denied, if the Inspector vouched it. But this editing was often a serious addition to our labours; for it might involve a considerable amount of research and some delicate enquiries. “Date of birth of the assistant mistress?” What a question to ask a lady! I used to soothe the patient by jestingly proposing impossible pre-historic dates, and so coming gently down to the irreducible minimum of the approximate truth. And the managers always liked to hear the old Bar story: