A clerk approached. "Can I help you?"
"I want to talk to Mr. Norton himself."
The clerk spoke into a wrist transmitter. "Mr. Norton, a man to see you."
In a few moments a bulbous man came heavily down the aisle, peering through dark tinted glasses at Philon. "Yes?"
"I have a very rare first edition of Smyth's Atomic Energy," said Philon, showing the book.
Norton adjusted his glasses, then took the book. He carefully handled it, looking over the outside of the covers, then thumbed the pages. After a long frowning moment, he said, "Publication date is nineteen forty-six but the book's fairly new. Must have been kept hermetically sealed in helium for a good many years."
"Yeah, yeah, it was," Philon said matter-of-factly. "Came from my paternal grandfather's side of the family. A book like this ought to be worth at the very least seventy-five thousand."
But the bulbous Mr. Norton was not impressed. He shrugged vaguely. "Well—it's just possible—" He looked up at Philon suddenly. "Before I make any offer to you I shall have to radiocarbon date the book. Are you willing to sacrifice a back flyleaf in the process?"
"Why a flyleaf?"
"We have to convert a sample of the book into carbon dioxide to geigercount the radioactivity in the carbon. You see, all living things like the cotton in the rags the paper is made of absorb the radioactive carbon fourteen that is formed in the upper atmosphere by cosmic radiation. Then it begins to decay and we can measure very accurately the amount, which gives us an absolute time span."