Sunday dinner at the Smith's. In clockwise order around the table: Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Bloom, Catherine Bloom, Margaret Bloom, Megan Cupcake, Mr. Bloom (at the far end), Clotilde, little Alexander, Mr. Smiley, Molly Bloom and Roderick. Mr. Fuzzums and Miss Kitty remain hidden under Catherine's chair. Alexander sits on an oddly shaped and brightly colored booster seat. On the menu today: roast pork, apple sauce and little green things. Clotilde brings a gift of pickled beets, which Mrs. Smith gratefully accepts and hides, hoping that Clotilde won't expect them to be served.
"What brings you to town, Mr. Smiley?" asks Megan.
"Oh, you know," says Mr. Smiley. "Just visiting."
"There's a new coffee place in town," says Mrs. Smith. "It's called Just Java."
"Oh, yes," says Mr. Smiley. "I went there last week."
"How was it?"
"Well..." Mr. Smiley ponders this. On the one hand, fair trade coffee; on the other, absence of whipped cream, no sprinkles, the question of coffee beans feeling pain, tiny spoon, exploding head. "It was nice."
Roderick is excited about his History of Accounting course. "Did you know that Luca Pacioli didn't actually invent double-entry bookkeeping? He merely codified it in his Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità, a textbook for use in the schools of Northern Italy."
"No," says Mr. Bloom. "I had no idea."
Roderick warms to the subject. "The Summa, published in 1494, was a synthesis of the mathematical knowledge of his time and contained the first printed work on algebra written in the vernacular. It is also notable for including the first published description of the method of bookkeeping that Venetian merchants used during the Italian Renaissance, known as the double-entry accounting system. The system he published included most of the accounting cycle as we know it today. He described the use of journals and ledgers, and warned that a person should not go to sleep at night until the debits equaled the credits. His ledger had accounts for assets (including receivables and inventories), liabilities, capital, income, and expenses — the account categories that are reported on an organization's balance sheet and income statement, respectively. He demonstrated year-end closing entries and proposed that a trial balance be used to prove a balanced ledger."
Mr. Smiley listens intently, especially to the part about not going to sleep at night until the debits equal the credits. He finds this thought a little disturbing. Do his debits equal his credits? He does not know. Extracting a little journal from his pocket, he writes a note to himself to check on his debits and credits, and to make sure they are well behaved.
"Personally," says Mr. Bloom, "I want nothing to do with debits and credits. I'd rather pay my accountant to attend to them."
"Also," says Roderick, "Pacioli introduced the Rule of 72."
"Ah, the Rule of 72," says Mr. Smith. "What would we do without the Rule of 72?"
"Dessert anyone?" chirps Mrs. Smith.
The response is immediate and unanimous. In Beauneville, dessert is invariably pie, and nobody ever declines pie.
After dinner, while Molly plays the piano, Megan corners Roderick in the hallway. "Say something about Accounting," she whispers, rubbing up against him. "It makes me hot."
"Maybe later," says Roderick. "Molly's playing Charles Ives' Concord Sonata, and I want to hear the part in Hawthorne that Ives described as 'something to do with the children's excitement on that "frosty Berkshire morning, and the frost imagery on the enchanted hall window" or something to do with "Feathertop," the "Scarecrow," and his "Looking Glass" and the little demons dancing around his pipe bowl; or something to do with the old hymn tune that haunts the church and sings only to those in the churchyard, to protect them from secular noises, as when the circus parade comes down Main Street; or something to do with the concert at the Stamford camp meeting, or the "Slave's Shuffle"; or something to do with the Concord he-nymph, or the "Seven Vagabonds," or "Circe's Palace," or something else in the wonderbook--not something that happens, but the way something happens; or something to do with the "Celestial Railroad," or "Phoebe's Garden," or something personal,which tries to be "national" suddenly at twilight, and universal suddenly at midnight; or something about the ghost of a man who never lived, or about something that never will happen, or something else that is not.'"
Meanwhile, Mr. Smith, Mr. Bloom and Mr. Smiley sit on the front porch. Mr. Smith and Mr. Bloom sip a fine Calvados; Mr. Smiley sips chocolate milk. They reflect on life in general, and matters philosophical.
"So, Mr. Smiley, what are you doing with yourself these days?" asks Mr. Bloom.
Mr. Smiley sips his chocolate milk. He frowns, purses his lips, ponders the question. The chocolate milk is tasty. "Oh, nothing, really," he says.
