much fraud: A would assert
that he gave money to B to pay for land when in truth it was given for
some other purpose. So the courts abandoned the rule founded on the
part payment of the purchase price. A can however get back his money.

An option to purchase land, contained in an agreement to sell, must be
exercised within a reasonable time, if none is fixed in the agreement.
See _Deed_.

=Auctioneer.=--An auctioneer, employed by a person to sell his
property, is primarily the owner's agent only, and he remains his
exclusive agent to the moment when he accepts the purchaser's bid and
knocks down the property to him. On accepting the bid the auctioneer
is deemed to be the agent of the purchaser also, so far as is needful
to complete the sale; he may therefore bind the purchaser by entering
his name to the sale and by signing the memorandum thereof. His
signing is sufficient to satisfy the Statute of Frauds in any state
conferring on an agent authority to make and contract for the sale of
real and personal property without requiring his authority to be in
writing. His agency may begin before the time of the sale and continue
after it. Again, the entry of the purchaser's name must be made by the
auctioneer or his clerk immediately on the acceptance of the bid and
the striking down of the property at the place of sale. It cannot be
made afterward. The auctioneer at the sale is the agent of the
purchaser who by the act of bidding calls on him or his clerk to put
down his name as the purchaser. In such case there is little danger of
fraud. If the auctioneer could afterward do this he might change the
name, substitute another, and so perpetrate a fraud.

A sale by auction is complete by the Sales Act when the auctioneer
announces its completion by the fall of the hammer, or in other
customary manner. Until such announcement is made, any bidder may
retract his bid; and the auctioneer may withdraw the goods from sale
unless the auction has been announced to be without reserve.

Authority may be conferred on an auctioneer in the same manner as on
any other agent for the sale of similar property, verbally or in
writing. Even to make a contract for the sale of real estate, oral
authority to the auctioneer is sufficient, in the absence of a statute
to the contrary.

Authority to sell property does not of itself imply authority to sell
it at auction, and the purchaser therefore who has notice of the
agent's authority or know