We had often seen these "scores" at country
inns behind the doors of the rooms where the poorer customers were
served. It was a simple method of "book-keeping," as the customers'
initials were placed at the head of a line of straight strokes marked by
the landlord with white chalk, each figure "one" representing a pint of
beer served to his customer during the week, and the money for the
"pints" had to be paid at the week's end, for Saturday was the day when
wages were invariably paid to working men in the country; as scarcely
one of them could write his own name, it was a simple method of keeping
accounts that appealed to them, and one that could easily be understood,
for all they had to do, besides paying the money, was to count the
number of strokes opposite their names. In some places it was the custom
to place P. for pint and Q. for quart, which accounted for the origin of
the phrase, _Mind your p's and q's_, so that the phrase, becoming a
general warning to "look out," was originally used as a warning to the
drinker to look at the score of p's and q's against him. We once heard
of a landlord, however, whose first name was Daniel, and who was
dishonest.
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