Unnamed Salesman 1

In "Gold Is Not Always" and again in Go Down, Moses, the man who attempts to sell Lucas Beauchamp a metal detector is "young, not yet thirty, with the assurance, the slightly soiled snap and dash, of his calling" (226, 76). When he falls for Lucas' story about buried treasure he ends up renting the machine from Lucas to search for the money on his own. Just who has sold whom is suggested when the stories bring the two men face to face: "the shrewd, suddenly attentive face of the young white man, the absolutely impenetrable face of the Negro" ("Gold," 229, 80 - although in the novel the phrase is "absolutely expressionless").