The audience was made up of just the
type of those who come to California with agricultural desires and a few
hundred dollars--slow plodders from Eastern farms, Italians with savings
and ambitions, half invalids--all the element that crowds the tourist
sleepers day in and day out, the people who are filling the odd corners
of the greater valleys. As these debouched into the glare of the outer
offices, they hesitated, making up their slow minds which way to turn.
In that instant or so the gray man, like a captain, assigned his
salesmen. The latter were of all sorts--fat and joking, thin and very
serious-minded, intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty. The gray man
sized up his prospective customers and to each assigned a salesman to
suit. Bob had no means of guessing how accurate these estimates might
be, but they were evidently made intelligently, with some system
compounded of theory or experience. After a moment Bob became conscious
that he himself was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man, and in
return watched covertly. He saw the gray man shake his head slightly.
Bob passed out the door unaccosted by any of the salesmen.
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