Mr. Emurian gently shook an admonitory finger.
“You accept my legend as fact, my dear sir! You are a romantic!” Then he added comfortably: “I do not know how he would use the coin as a guide. I do know that he would consider that it was not quite real in this world, and hence should be exempt from some physical laws. He would expect it to have some tendency to become more real, which it could only do by returning to its own time and place. How the tendency would show itself, I cannot guess. But I will write down my friend’s name and address. I promise that he will pay you a high price for your token.”
Tony Gregg looked almost hungrily at the coin. An idea came into his head. His conscience, its eyes on that two thousand, protested indignantly.
“I’ll let the coin decide,” he said unhappily. “Heads I sell it, tails I don’t.”
He tossed. The coin thumped on the table. Tails. He gulped in relief and pushed back his chair.
“It’s settled,” he said, flushing a little in his excitement. “And—and I won’t take your friend’s address because I—don’t want to be able to change my mind.”
Mr. Emurian beamed.
“A romantic!” he said approvingly. “It is admirable! I wish you good fortune, sir!”
Tony thanked him confusedly and paid his bill and departed.
Outside, in the spottily lighted street, he felt more or less dazed; his conscience prodded him, bitingly reproachful, demanding that he go back and get the address he had just refused. This was in the Syrian quarter, on lower East Broadway, with signs in Arabic in those scattered shop windows still lighted. Most of the buildings about were dark and silent, and there were only very occasional lumbering trucks for traffic. The atmosphere was a compound of the exotic and the commonplace that did not make for clear thinking. The facts were staggering, too. If the coin in Tony’s pocket was worth two thousand dollars, that in itself was enough to make him dizzy. He had never carried more than a week’s salary in his pocket at any time, and never that for long.