In the ancient world, it is said, and in some modern people groups, counting was 1, 2, 3, many (not note 1 2 many). It has since long been known that there are three kinds of accountants in the world. Those who can count, and those who can’t.

I had been introduced to Take four a couple of years ago

On that former occasion the gentleman concerned was walking down Fleet Street late at night having just finished work. The frog leapt up to him, and eventually discovered that he was a software developer – probably a C++ coder.

Take five also has another guise, a man is troubled by the question what is two and two and began his search for the answer.

He started with his old arithmetic teacher at school, to whom the answer was obvious. This did not satisfy him, it was too simple an answer.

So he then moved on to ask a university mathematics professor, who held him spell bound for several hours whilst he lectured on number theory. It all sounded so perfectly reasonable and what wonderful logic, but soon after he had left the company of the great professor it began to dawn on him that the professor had not actually answered his question at all, even though he clearly knew how to resolve the problem and had provided him with all the tools he needed to do so. Nevertheless he could not figure out how to use them himself.

So his attention turned to others who understood numbers. The bookkeeper in his office seemed the next place to go.’He must be a good choice’, he thought to himself, ‘after all he spends all of his time putting numbers together in a variety of forms’. He received a swift, almost courteous, but perhaps rather more curt, reply from the bookkeeper, who did not seem to want to be distracted from his absorbtion in adding up what seemed like an interminably long list of numbers on what looked like a roll of paper. Remember, for every debit there is a credit, he said, when you add the balances up they must come down to zero. Debit 2, credit 2. Zero you see.

Well he didn’t see, and so he turned to the banker. Although the banker dealt primarily with money and not numbers, he knew it was important to keep a track of how much you have, especially when it belongs to someone else, so it seemed to him that the banker would have to do some counting and adding up. But the banker’s answer left him totally perplexed, as the banker talked about double debitting, creditor and debtor balances, borrowing and lending, so he was not sure even whether the banker thought that two and two made either something – and a rather large something at that – or when you put them together nothing at all.

The next resource he considered was the economist. Surely an economist would be able to provide him with an answer. Indeed he could, as he found out. The economist introduced him to Keynes and monetary theories, supply and demand, propensity and a host of other ideas that had never previously occured to him and before long he began to understand that the economist thought that two and two made something just a little bit less than four, because you always lost something on the way.

He was becoming rather disconsolate. Noone so far had been able to provide a satisfactory answer. He thought about asking an actuary, because he had heard that an actuary did some very wonderful and special things with numbers. His friends strongly advised him against this course of action knowing that it was an entirely fruitless expedition. Nevertheless against their better counsel, he went to an actuary who had an office in a very narrow lane towards the river. When he got there he was led up a narrow winding staircase to a rather dark room. It was rather like making your way through a monastery to the holy place where the shrine was kept. There was the actuary. It was obvious that he was held in awe by those who worked for him, the soft soled slippers which were exchanged for shoes on the way to his room, for we could hardly call it an office, and the hushed voices in the corridor outside made that very plain. The actuary sat at a high desk on a tall stool with a pen in his hand. He was completely surrounded by books which looked as if they had not been opened for years (indeed they had not for the actuary had finished writing in some of them twenty years ago, and had written on the cover of each one the date on which it was next to be opened in order to make the next entry in it). The actuary moved. It was evidently a signal to come in and sit down as a chair for a visitor was provided. The others left the room and the door closed completely silently. It was only then that he noticed that even the pen with which the actuary wrote made no sound on the paper.

After what seemed like eternity but was in fact only twenty minutes, the actuary spoke and asked what his enquiry was. The question was placed, and silence followed for another twenty minutes. The actuary spoke for a second time. He had never heard a man speak so clearly. Every word was elucidated with the utmost precision. Every syllable was given exactly the correct amount of inflexion. He was awestruck and began to understand how the actuary had come to be held in such high regard. Then silence, and in the silence he realised that he had not heard a single word. He had listened to the sounds of the actuary’s voice and had been so entranced by it that he had forgotten to put the words together to form sentences, which had meaning intended for his understanding. Then the actuary spoke for a third time. This time he listened. He refused to be put off by the quality of the sounds and tried to devote himself to understanding the content. Three hours later the actuary was still talking in the most eloquent way you could ever imagine. He had not repeated himself, and he had not strayed from his subject, rather he had laid out the foundations of his arguments and established the framework in which he would proceed, rather like a grand Mahlerian symphony only much, much longer. He eventually concluded his analysis and presented the main points again in a recapitulation which itself took well over an hour. So, what was the answer? An answer is available, but the actuary had already closed the book in which he had been writing, for all the while he had been speaking he had written every word, every syllable, every accent into a book on the cover of which he wrote a date. ‘Only time will tell the outcome of all things’, he said.

Well he had had two slightly different answers to his question and been utterly perplexed by the others. Where could he go then, and it suddenly came to him, ask an accountant. He reckoned that because that was all they ever did, add numbers together, an accountant would be able to provide the answer. So he found one.

He had to wait in the accountant’s reception what seemed to him to be an interminably long time, during which time he thought about all the important counting and adding up the accountant would be doing. But eventually the partner’s secretary came down to take him up to his office. He went in and was immediately put at his ease by the quality of the furnishing, the deep carpets, the heavy curtains and leather chairs. The manner of the accountant also commended itself to him. The man was not at all overbearing but quite diffident, even shy, and yet somehow exuding an air of confidence that could only come from someone who knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. He felt sure he was going to get the answer that he so desparately wanted here.

The accountant introduced himself, spoke a little bit about his practice and then started to get to know his visitor by asking appropriate questions. Eventually the accountant asked what business had specifically brought him to his office. By this time he was perfectly at rest in the comfort of the accountant’s office and had no difficulty explaining his question and the responses he had already had to the accountant. The accountant hardly seemed troubled by any of this, almost as if he understood so much better than he did how frustrated he had been by the inadequacy of these answers and expressed much sympathy with him over the matter, which gave him even greater confidence that he would now receive the answer that more than ever he knew he wanted.

And as he waited in great expectation, the accountant slowly leaned across his wide leather topped desk and spoke almost inaudibly, not in a whisper but rather with great resolve and penetration, Let me see now, what answer do you want?

His words hung solemnly, majestically, authoritatively in the air:

What did you have in mind?

^{Scribbled on a napkin a profound truth of the 20th century lay in tatters}