Nine-tenths of them understood not a word of English; but his gesture was unmistakable.

They bowed gratefully, and said good-day.
Now Frowenfeld did these young men an injustice; and though they were far from letting him know it, some of them felt it and interchanged expressions of feeling reproachful to him as they stopped on the next corner to watch a man painting a sign.

He had treated them as if they all wanted situations.

Was this so?
Far from it.

Only twenty men were applicants; the other twenty were friends who had come to see them get the place.