Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone. The exhibit of a real estate office attracted him. Over the door, in place of a sign, hung a huge stretched canvas depicting not too rudely a wide country-side dotted with model farms of astounding prosperity. The window was filled with pumpkins, apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat, bottles full of soft fruits preserved in alcohol, and the like. As background was an oil painting in which the Lucky Lands occupied a spacious pervading foreground, while in clever perspectives the Coast Range, the foothills, and the other cities of the San Fernando Valley supplied a modest setting. This was usual enough. At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He scrutinized closely every passerby. Occasionally he hailed one or the other, conversed earnestly a brief instant, and passed them inside. Gradually it dawned on Bob that this man was acting in the capacity of "barker"--that with quite admirable perspicacity and accuracy, he was engaged in selecting from the countless throngs the few possible purchasers for Lucky Lands. Curious to see what attraction was offered to induce this unanimity of acquiescence to the barker's invitation, the young man approached. "What's going on?" he asked. The barker appraised him with one sweeping glance. "Stereopticon lecture inside," he snapped, and turned his back. Bob made his way into a dimly lighted hall. At one end was a slightly elevated platform above which the white screen was suspended. More agricultural products supplied the decorations. The body of the hall was filled with folding chairs, about half of which were occupied. Perhaps a dozen attendants tiptoed here and there. A successful attempt was everywhere made to endow with high importance all the proceedings and appurtenances of the Lucky Land Co. Bob slipped into a chair. Immediately a small pasteboard ticket and a fountain pen were thrust into his hand. "Sign your name and address on this," the man whispered. Bob held it up, the better to see what it was. "All these tickets are placed in a hat," explained the man, "and one is drawn. The lucky ticket gets a free ride to Lucky on one of our weekly homeseekers' excursions. Others pay one fare for round trip." "I see," said Bob, signing, "and in return you get the names and addresses of every one here." He glanced up at his interlocutor with a quizzical expression that changed at once to one of puzzlement. Where had he seen the man before? He was, perhaps, fifty-five years old, tall and slender, slightly stooped, slightly awry. His lean gray face was deeply lined, his close-clipped moustache and hair were gray, and his eyes twinkled behind his glasses with a cold gray light. Something about these glasses struck faintly a chord of memory in Bob's experience, but he could not catch its modulations. The man, on his side, stared at Bob a trifle uncertainly. Then he held the card up to the dim light.