"Murray Leinster - A Logic Named Joe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

specific tooth paste, hair stickum, breath deodorant, and brand of popular-priced suits. It was pleasant,
therefore, to have something vague and mysterious around, like the coin.
It couldn't have been made as a novelty or anything like that. Not when it was gold. But it came from
no country anyone had ever heard of. He liked to think that there was some mystery about its having
reached his hands; some significance in the fact that he had come to own it and no one else. To make it
seem more significant, probably, he got into the habit of tossing it for all decisions of no particular
moment. Whether to go to a ball game or not. Whether or not to eat at his regular restaurant. On this
excess, his conscience dourly reserved decision.
He'd owned the coin two months, and the habit of using it to make small decisions had become fixed,
when one evening he tossed it to see whether or not he should go to his regular restaurant for dinner. It
came tails. No. He was mildly amused. To another restaurant uptown? Tails again. He flipped and
flipped and flipped. His common sense told him that he was simply running into a long sequence of tails.
But he liked to think that the decisions of the coin were mysterious and significant. Tonight he got a little
excited when one place after another was negatived. He ran out of restaurants he could remember having
dined in. So he tossed his coin with the mental note that if it came heads he'd try a new restaurant, where
he'd never dined before. But the coin came tails. Negative. Then he really racked his brainsтАФand
remembered the little Syrian restaurant down on lower East Broadway. He flipped for that. And the coin
came heads.
He got on the subway and rode downtown, while his conscience made scornful comments about
superstition. He went into the small converted store with something of an anticipatory thrill. His way of life
was just about as unexciting as anybody's life could be. He had been pretty well tamed by the way he
was raised, which had created a conscience with a mind of its own and usually discouraging opinions. His
conscience now spoke acidly, and he had to assure it that he didn't really believe that the coin meant
anything, but that he only liked to pretend it did.
So he sat down at a table and automatically flipped the coin to see whether he should order
shishkebab or not. The swarthy, slick-haired proprietor grinned at him. There was a bald-headed man at
a table in the backтАФa man in impeccably tailored clothing, with gold-rimmed eyeglasses and the definite
dark dignity of a Levantine of some sort.
"Say," said the proprietor, in wholly colloquial English. "You showed me a funny goldpiece last time
you were here. Is it that? Mr. Emurian, back there, he knows a lot about that stuff. A very educated
man! You want I should ask him about it?"
This seemed to Tony a mysterious coincidence. He agreed eagerly. The restaurant-keeper took the
coin. He showed it to the bald-headed man. They talked at length, not in English. The restaurant-keeper
came back.
"He never seen one like it," he reported. "And he never heard of Barkut, where it says it come from.
But he says there's a kinda story about coins and things like thatтАФthings that come from places that
nobody ever heard of. He'll tell you if you want."
"Please!" said Tony. He found his heart beating faster. "If he'll join meтАФ"
"Oh, he'll have a cuppa coffee, maybe," said the restaurant-keeper. "On the house. He's a very
educated man, Mr. Emurian is."
He went back. The bald-headed man rose and came with easy dignity toward Tony's table. His eyes
twinkled. Tony was flustered because this Mr. Emurian looked so foreign and spoke such perfect English
and was so perfectly at ease.
"There is a legend," he told Tony humorously, "which might amuse youтАФif I may put down my coffee
cup? Thank you." He sat. "It is an old wives' tale, and yet it fits oddly into the theories of Mr. Einstein and
other learned men. But I know a man in Ispahan who would give you a great sum for that coin because
of the legend. Would you wish to sell?"
Tony shook his head.
"SayтАФfive hundred dollars?" asked Mr. Emurian, smiling behind his eyeglasses. "No? Not even a
thousand? I will give you the address of the man who would buy it, if you ever wish to sell."