You can make up your mind that, though some men may be proof against your most seductive wiles, the mass of them are not. Pack men closely together, start up the battery of your personal magnetism, and you will get somebody under control. Then the fire will spread from him to another, and so on, until the mass of the throng are just as much your victims as though they had resigned themselves to a hypnotic doctor on the stage.
There are dozens of ways in which a crowd can be prepared for this influence and by which it can be maintained. Take the pretended money deception. That operates along this line. I used to carry a lot of dummy stacks of coin money.
They were put up to resemble piles of silver dollars and five and ten and twenty-dollar gold pieces, and looked like stacks of real money. To all appearance I would have thousands and thousands of dollars stacked up in front of me in the carriage, and I found that its presence helped me out wonderfully in holding and magnetizing a crowd. They would stand around, gazing at this money and wanting to see what I was going to do with it, until they forgot all about it in their interest in something else. But all the same I had started their expectant attention, and by and by they were ready to see the green cheese in the moon. With such an evidence of wealth in sight they were ready to believe in the value of almost anything I presented.
I also used an imitation of paper money with the same effect.
When I got fairly in the swing of “giving away” goods I would say:
“Don’t imagine, gentlemen, that I am traveling simply for personal profit made now and at your expense. I am introducing these goods. That’s all there is to it. The firm I am with represents millions, and I have all the money of my own that I know what to do with. I don’t need yours. You can see for yourselves my very clothes are lined with it.”
Then I would pull out bundles of this green paper from every pocket, piling them on the table in front of me, and perhaps seeming to light a cigar with a ten or twenty-dollar bill.
This particular time I sold jewelry packages and after giving some kind of an interlude I would say to the crowd:
“Now, gentlemen, I have traveled over every state and territory in this glorious union, and in all foreign lands; I am known the world over as whole-souled, honest, liberal Jim, the man who gives goods away. I am going to show you tonight that I deserve the title. You’ve done considerable for me; I’m going to do something for you.
“Here is a genuine, black kid purse with fourteen rivets. It would cost you in the regular way fifty-five cents. Here are a pair of patent lever collar buttons, that should cost you at least half a dollar. I’ll just drop them into the little pocket book. Here I have a beautiful wedding ring, warranted solid brass. You’ll notice I don’t make misrepresentations. We’ll say that this wedding ring is worth a nickel, and drop it also into the purse, like this. Then, we’ll go right down here and get a pair of these beautiful, agate setting cuff buttons, that any jeweler in the world would charge you a great big dollar for. We’ll drop them into the little purse and call the whole outfit two dollars. Don’t forget. They are a fortune in themselves, magnetic and diretic, and can be used internally, externally, eternally and ever-lastingly.