merchants' accounts exception

The case protected by the exception is not every transaction between merchant and merchant, not every account which might exist between them, but it must concern the trade of merchandise. It is not an exemption from the act, attached to the merchant merely as a personal privilege, but an exemption which is conferred on the business as well as on the persons between whom that business is carried on. The account must concern the trade of merchandise: and this trade must be, not an ordinary traffic between a merchant and any ordinary customers, but between merchant and merchant. This 'trade of merchandise,' which can furnish an account protected by the exception, must be not only between merchant and merchant, but between the plaintiff and defendant.