To the inexperienced they looked as if they might possibly be worth forty or fifty dollars apiece.

They cost Levine about two dollars and twenty-five cents each.

His next step was to select some small shop belonging to a plumber, grocer, or electrician which was ordinarily left in the charge of a clerk while the owner was out attending to his work or securing orders.

Levine would find some excuse for entering the shop, engage the clerk in conversation, and having secured his attention would produce one of his watches and extol its merits at length, explaining what a great bargain it was and how--only owing to an exceptional concatenation of circumstances--he was able to offer it for the ridiculously low figure of thirty dollars.
Now it never made any difference to Levine whether the clerk wanted the watch or not.

His procedure remained the same in all cases.
He would first offer to let the fellow have it by paying one dollar a week on the installment plan.