A BIG REDUCTION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9915, 2 August 1910, Page 3

A BIG REDUCTION.

A want of familiarity with business practices sometimes leads to amusing and sometime to embarrassing results; and occasionally to both. A lady who kept a small seaside hotel thought it would be profitable to bring the fact to the attention of the public. Accordingly, she drafted a suitable advertisement, and carried .it to the office of a newspaper, where she inquired the expense of five insertions. It was the custom of this paper, where advertisements were inserted more than four times, to deduct 25 per cent from the usual rates. The clerk read over what she had written, estimated the space it would require, and said, "It will come to twenty-six shillings; but, as it is going in over four times, it will be twenty-hve off." " Oh," she exclaimed, " why that's verv reasonable!"—and, putting down a shilling, she started for the door. It was difficult to tell which was the more embarrassed, the landlady or the clerk, when he called her back and explained that "twenty-five off" meant twenty-five percent, and not twentyfive shillings.