They went out of the restaurant. Adam wondered how he could break away discreetly, for the man showed no signs of letting up.

“Farragut’s only twenty miles,” Griffin boomed. “You ought to come over and hear my pitch. I’m pushing a ballpoint pen, no better and no worse than any other. But here’s the secret, here’s how come we get two bucks for them. We took out a trade name R. Rand—patented it—and it’s printed on the pens. Get it?”

“Not quite.”

“Easy. People see it, what do they think? R. Rand. Why, that must be Remington Rand! And everybody knows Remington Rand’s a fine old company, so they figure they’re getting more than their two dollars’ worth. It’s the old principle. ‘Something for nothing.’ See, there’s a little tiny bit of larceny in everybody’s heart. I make them think I’m kind of dumb, so they believe they’re taking advantage of me. Something for nothing; you know? You can sell people all kinds of things they don’t need, easy, you can make them do things they never would think of doing, just as long as they believe they’re special, important, getting in on the ground floor—you know? Boy.”

“That’s a very interesting theory,” Adam said.

“It ain’t a theory; it’s a fact. I been living on it for most of my life, I ought to know!” Sam Griffin laughed. “It’s a funny way to work, I guess—I mean, I admit it, I’m what you might call a con man—but, I ask you, is it much different from any other business? Advertising, politics—just great big pitches, that’s all. Selling the public something they don’t need, making them like it. Boy, what church you go to?”

Adam passed a hand through his hair. “I’m—a Baptist,” he said.

“That so? Well, you won’t find no trouble in Caxton. They got practically nothing but Baptists here, Baptists and Methodists— but not too many of them. Vy and me ain’t anything in particular, really; we believe in the good Lord’s word and what the Bible says, but when you’re all the time making jumps, you don’t get a chance to worship much formal. But you know”—Griffin paused for a moment, as though assembling the important parts of the story to follow—“I come within an ace of being a preacher myself, a couple years ago! Yeah, I did. Vy and—”

Vy Griffin nudged her husband and laughed. “Come on, Sam,” she said, “stop bending Mr. Cramer’s ear. He hasn’t got time for that story. I clocked you at forty-five minutes when you told it to that DeSoto dealer.”

Griffin shrugged. “Well, doggone it, it’s a good one. We’ll get together some night, Adam, and I’ll tell it to you. How about that?”