a branch of our house there, managed by our jjunior partner (i) Mr. Wood, We have been doing very well for the last five years.
   M.  I'm glad to hear that  Do you generally grant long credit to your buyers there ?
   0.  Payment by acceptance at ninety days against delivery of shipping documents (2) is the usual condition; but some houses choose to buy at shorter terms, say at sixty or thirty days, sometimes even by cash, against discount on the invoice price (3).
   M.  I see. So your foreign bills paid in at the Bank will be backed by bills of lading and insurance policies, which our branch in Buenos Ayres will deliver to drawees against acceptance of your drafts.
   0.  Exactly so. Such being the case what conditions are you disposed to grant us ?
   (1) Junior partner  « Socio juniore », cioè il meno anziano.
   (2) Shipping documents  « Documenti d'imbarco», cioè la Polita dì carico « Bili of lading » e la Polita d'Assicurazione della merce «Insurance policy».
   (3) Invoice price  « Prezzo di fattura », cioè il prezzo come risulta dal conto fattura.
    ! 11 
   M.  Interest, you know, cannot be calculated on a bill when the date of acceptance is unknown, from which the currency (1) of the bill is to run. A bill on a party in America may reach its destination sooner or later, other events may cause a delay; the drawee, may accept or not accept the term for which the bill was drawn, any of these and other events will make the date of maturity quite uncertain, and almost impossible therefore to fix the exact amount of discount.
   On this consideration we have adopted with our customers in the American trade the following very practical system, which is simply an advance, but meets the same purpose as discount.
   On receiving bills, we credit our clients in current account for a part of the amount, say seventy five, eighty or even ninety per cent, according to the case, and on the same being cashed at maturity, we credit them with the balance, under deduction of exchange (2), commission, stamps and other charges, if any.
   (1) Parlando di cambiali dicesi currency il termine entro il quale devono essere pagate, p. e. 30 giorni due mesi ecc.
   (2) Exchange  11 « Cambio », cioè la differenza tra il valore tipo dell'unità monetaria di un paese e quello che l'unità stessa ha in altro paese ad un dato momento.