The chairman of a poultry society answers a member: 'It cannot be said that the society ran at a loss last year. A loss, properly understood, means that a body owes money it is unable to pay; the society owes nothing and has met every bill on the day it fell due.' The chairman's answer is most open to criticism because it

The member's charge is that the year's outgoings exceeded the year's receipts. The chairman never touches that; he defines 'loss' as inability to pay and then reports that the society can pay, which leaves the original figures where they were. A society that spends a lakh more than it earns and meets the difference out of its reserve is solvent and out of pocket at once, and the chairman's meaning quietly puts the second fact beyond reach of the word. The total of the bills is not the flaw but a thing the chairman ought to have addressed; nobody's understanding of the term is in question; and no set of accounts has been produced for the auditor's identity to matter.