Slate : noun Account de marchandises, consumption taken on credit (formerly noted on a slate).
Credit; bill, bill, bill.
Drink on the slate or have a slate: drink on credit at the cafe or at the wine merchant; note, credit, debt; to have credit; unpaid bill at cafeteria, drink on credit; debt with the wine merchant.
Have a nice slate: have big coffee debts.
Clear his slate: pay his debts, his bill.
– Quote from the American writer John Fante (1909-1983): “An army pensioner who lives on his retirement, barely enough to clean up the slates that he leaves everywhere and yet, he only buys guts instead of gin. " In the novel Ask the dust (1939)