That evening Philon dropped in on Bill MacDonald, who was sitting in his slippers smoking an old fashioned wood pipe.
"Come in, come in." MacDonald greeted him with a friendly smile. "I was just doing a little reading."
Philon held out the book. "I'm returning your masterpiece," he said with a sardonic smile.
MacDonald received it, glancing at the title. "Oh, Smyth's Atomic Energy. Good book—did you find it interesting?"
Philon began to laugh. "Well, I'll tell you, Bill, your little racket of having spurious first editions printed some place and then peddling them sure caught up with me."
The good-natured smile on MacDonald's face faded in a look of incredulity. He took the pipe from his mouth. "Spurious first editions?"
"Yeah, I sure took a beating today but I couldn't help laughing over it afterwards. Here I've been thinking of you folks as simon-pure numbers. But I got to hand it to you. You sure took me in with Smyth's Atomic Energy as being a genuine first edition." Philon went on to explain the radiocarbon dating of the book.
MacDonald finally broke in to protest, "But that book really is over a hundred years old." Then he looked up at his wife. "Of course, Carol, that's the explanation. The radiocarbon wouldn't decay a full hundred years any more than we...." Suddenly, he seemed to catch himself, as his wife raised a hand in apparent agitation.
"But why did you want to sell my book to a dealer?" MacDonald continued.