Accountants are usually conservative personalities. “What’s a shy and retiring accountant?” goes an old joke. “An accountant who’s half a million shy and that’s why he’s retiring.”
 
“Remember our shy and retiring accountant I told you about? He’s shy about $40,000 and retired to South America” was cited in 1970 in the newspaper comic strip The Better Half by Bob Barnes.
 
 
24 September 1970, Greensboro (NC) Record, “The Better Half” comic strip by Bob Barnes, pg. C15, col. 2:
(Said by a husband to his wife.—ed.)
“Remember our shy and retiring accountant I told you about?—He’s shy about $40,000 and retired to South America.”
 
Google Books
Business Week
Issues 3772-3775
2002
Pg. 130:
WHAT’S A SHY AND RETIRING accountant? An accountant who’s half a million shy and that’s why he or she is retiring.
 
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Value Costoff
April 17, 2013 ·
What’s a shy and retiring accountant?
One that’s half-a-million shy and that’s why he’s retiring.
 
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Lisa Cooke
April 5, 2014
From Milton Berle:“The company accountant is shy and retiring. He’s shy a quarter of a million dollars. That’s why he’s retiring.” Have a good one!
‪#‎humor‬ ‪#‎unclemiltierocks‬
 
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What’s a shy and retiring accountant? An accountant who is half a million shy and that’s why he’s retiring.
3:25 AM - 5 Aug 2014