Waiting in line to meet Donald Trump at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble yesterday and have him sign his new book, “Think Big and Kick Ass,” and possibly get one of the $100 bills he was handing out: Lots of giddy ladies. A man of the cloth. A man without a home. A presidential candidate. And a child whose mother took him out of school for this historic opportunity.

“Fourth grade and he’s only 9!” she crowed.

Aren’t all fourth graders 9?

“Still!”

In other words, a great swath of New York turned out, all eager to meet the one man (besides Santa) who could make their dreams come true.

“He is a blessed man with the most beautiful wives and the most beautiful kids and if Rosie comes around, she must deal with me,” single mother Chirata Mina declared. She had dressed for the occasion in pink, or “peenk,” as she pronounced it: “Peenk scarf, peenk beautiful dress à la Jackie Onassis — I just bought it, new — the bracelet is peenk, the bag is peenk, the lipstick is peenk,” she puckered. All because Ms. Mina thinks pink is a lucky color. And this was a day suffused with luck.

“Some friend of my brother’s told me they were giving out $100 bills, and guess what?” the man behind her, Pop Henderson, said. “If they’re ever giving out any more $100 bills, I’m going to be there, too,” he said, flashing the crisp new Benjamin he’d just received.

Mr. Henderson lives on the sidewalk behind Port Authority. But now that he’s got $100, “I’m going to give it to me and my young girl,” he said, smiling slyly. How young?

“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” the 64-year-old said.

Onward.

“I’m going to put my $100 in my nephew’s plan for college,” a Brooklyn math teacher said. Others were planning to put their windfall into bonds, mutual funds, and frames, as inspiration. The fourth-grader was hoping to spend his on “Halo 3,” if his mother will let him.

She won’t. Besides, he only got $50, as did the second 100 people in line. Only the first 100 people got $100.

Whatever their take, most of the people immediately turned around and spent $20.44 of it on Mr. Trump’s book, because they truly believe it will help them think big and change their lives. And, frankly, it just might.

Mr. Trump’s co-author is the founder of the Learning Annex, Bill Zanker, who had built his night school into a $5.5 million business when he got the idea of inviting Mr. Trump to teach a class.

“I really wanted to get him, so I decided to go for it. I offered what to me was an enormous amount of money: $10,000,” Mr. Zanker writes. Mr. Trump’s secretary, Norma, politely hung up.

Mr. Zanker called back a few days later offering $25,000. The next week, $100,000. Finally he called to offer $1 million, “And Norma said, ‘That’s very interesting. I’ll talk to Donald about it.'” Less than an hour later, Mr. Trump called back. Deal. And today, three years later, the Learning Annex is a $100 million enterprise.

It’s that kind of story that electrified the people in line. The presidential candidate, Libertarian John Finan, wants Mr. Trump to be his running mate. The minister, Gregory Dwyer, wants Mr. Trump to help keep his church solvent. Galina Babushkin, a part-time accountant, just wanted to soak up his magic: “I like his arrogance.”

His what?

Mr. Trump, signing his books, looked up, grinning. “It’s a big crowd. It could go on forever!” he said.

Okay, arrogance. But when you’re handing out hope as well as hundreds, maybe that’s not so bad.

lskenazy@yahoo.com