EXPERT IN HANDSHAKES

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 May 1931, Page 12

EXPERT IN HANDSHAKES

‘ GUIDE TO CHARACTER “When you meet Mr. George Brook be careful how you shake hands with him. He can tell by your grip whether n 'are worth £lOOO a year or not,” says a representative of the Sunday Express, London, Mr. Brook has found jobs for 10,000 men in all branches of commerce during the past few years-—and-his handshake system has, he claims, failed in only one respect. He cannot, he confesses, judge a man who is about to get married. The writer said he saw Mr. Brook shake haijds with half a dozen men seated in the waiting room of his offices in Holborn, and without. speaking to one of them he was able to tell me what each man did for a living and whether he was a success br a failure. The men when they outlined their careers confirmed everything said by Mr. Brook. "I have made a hobby ■ of studying the psychology of every type of business man,” said Mr. Brook. “His appearance and his features tell me the nature of the work he does, but it is a man’s character, his mental make-up, that matters, and his handshake has proved an almost infallible guide to me when judging this. A woman’s ability and character, bn the other hand, can be gauged by the expression in her eyes. , • “I have made it a fiard and fast rule that every caller at my office must shake hands with the man dealing with his casei. My assistants have each been drilled in my handshake system. There are, roughly, seven different handshakes —the limpid, the too-eager, the too-firm, the hesitant, the unnatural, the too-prolonged, and the finger-tip handshake. Each type of handshake means something. “Watch how each of the men I am going to see now shakes hands, watch his mannerisms, observe his appearance, and note the way he talks. Look out for the man with a'kite face. The kite-faced men of this world have a hard time. They have broad foreheads and narrow jaws with pointed chins —faces shaped like a kite. “These men are invariably negative in qualities, weak and indeterminate, lacking in push and self-confidence. The kite-faced man gives you a hand like a cod, and says, ‘I suppose you have nothing for me?’ I haven’t. Nobody has anything for a man like that. “Look out also for- the man who does not offer to shake hands. Some men know the secret of the handshake and how much it may damn chances.”

Mr. Brook then interviewed his callers. He said' afterwards: “Did you notice the man who rushed into the office with out-stretched hand. He was brimming over with confidence, but it was just a shade too much confidence. His confidence was sheer bounce, a veneer hiding his lack of ability. His history confirmed what his handshake told me. “He held my hand like a vice, and then I watched his pantomime with a cigarette and his airy gestures with the hand. “Then you saw the man who twiddled with things on the table, moving an inkwell half an inch and flicking imaginary dust from my desk. His handshake was a trifle nervous, but it impressed me favourably.” Mr. Brook then spoke of the “Ha, ha,” type. “He obviously goes to Bond Street for his clothes, but I summed him up, despite his lavender gloves and gold-mounted cane, as a patronising, lazy man with no ambition. His handshake gave him away.

“He hesitated just a fraction of a second, as if shaking hands with strangers is not really done, and then he just touched my fingers. He lolled in his chair instead of sitting up attentively. He wanted a thousand*-a-year job, but admitted that he had never done a day’s work but had been ‘looking round’ for two years. He had the handshake of the ‘Ha, ha’ man.” Mr. Brook then confessed that love has sometimes upset every one of his theories. He said: “One man came to me, and a glance told me he had a kite face. His handshake stamped him as a man who could never command a large salary. I found him a job with small pay, and two years later he informed me that he had married. From his wedding day he became a different man, and is now earning a four-figure salary. “Another man who was already married started brilliantly, and then his work fell off. Sales of which he was in charge dropped and dropped. I discovered the cause. He had the perfect handshake, but he had fallen in love with another woman, and when his wife divorced him the other ,woman married somebody else. He went to pieces, and had to go into a mental home for a time. He is all right now.” Mr. Brook was once a newsboy, and in turn became a packer in a margarine factory, a shop assistant and then a sales manager with a salary of £2OOO a year. . ,