I SPOTTED Jim sitting near the kitchen when I stepped inside this pub he’d selected one Friday night. He was studying the menu. An hour earlier he had called, asked me to join him in celebrating the weekend. He’d buy all the beer I could drink, he said, in exchange for a good story. I took him up on it.
He ordered food and two buckets of beer, and after we’d each downed two bottles he asked me about my story.
“What’s it called?” he said.
“Coin Story. It’s something I read years ago.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I told him about this rich fellow who invited some friends to his house on his birthday. Six people came, and of those five were known to one another and the sixth, a special guest, was known only to the celebrator. The celebrator was James and the special guest was Robert. The five other guests were led by a fellow named George.
Copious quantities of wine, whiskey, beer and food were consumed. Later, the fellow called George dipped into his pocket and produced a small coin. The coin was given to him by his employer as a reward for his services, he said. The coin was rare and worth a lot of money.
The coin was passed around, and eventually was placed at the center of a table around which the host and his guests had seated themselves. The celebration went on. It wasn’t long before everyone forgot about the coin. The merrymakers discussed politics, current events, history and the movies”•everything that caught their fancy. They went on and on until someone remarked that the coin was missing, and everyone wondered how it got off the table.
A frantic search followed. The host and his guests looked at the places where the coin could have fallen, but no one found it. George was aghast. He begged those around him to help him keep searching for the coin, and they all did. But they found nothing.
Eventually James, the host, reluctantly announced there was nothing left to do but search everyone to get the coin back. Everyone frowned but agreed”•except for Robert. He urged everyone to keep looking, saying they might not have searched hard enough for the coin; the metal could not have disappeared into thin air. Everyone reluctantly agreed, but quite a few of them looked daggers at him. They continued the search, looking under the table and chairs and upending the sofas and couches”•but nothing turned up.
At this point James, exasperated, repeated his suggestion for a body search. Again, everyone agreed except for Robert, and just as the guests seemed ready to lynch him someone said he’d found the coin.
Everyone turned to look at the finder. They saw him standing with his left foot raised and pointing to the coin that was stuck on a piece of gum on the heel of his shoe, a piece of gum that, he said, he probably stepped on somewhere outside before he came into the house. He said he felt something was stuck on the heel of his left shoe after he had sobered up a little as a result of the scramble for the coin.
George was relieved. And after the finder gave him back his coin he asked Robert—with everyone listening”•why he had resisted being frisked when everyone else had stood ready for it. Robert then dipped into his left pocket and fished for something, and to everyone’s surprise he produced a coin that was similar to the one that was lost and then found. James quickly asked for both coins, studied them, and then remarked that those must have come from the same mint. Robert said if he had agreed to be searched and they found the coin on him, who would have believed it was his?
“No one,” Jim said.
“The scene would have been ugly,” I said. “Robert kept quiet about his coin not wanting to deprive George of his moment of glory.”
“A very considerate guy. And where did he get that coin?”
“In an auction in Hong Kong. It appears he’s a coin collector.”
“And how did James get to know him?”
“They were rummaging in this store selling used books, where Robert had chanced upon a copy of the first American edition of a classic British novel. It was a good find, and he couldn’t believe his luck.
“He stood there flipping the pages and closing and opening the book. He was ready to go to the cashier to pay for it when he noticed someone”•James, it turned out”•looking at the book longingly. He asked James if he wanted the book, and when James nodded he gave it to him. James then introduced himself, paid for the book and then invited him to dinner, saying he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“That was how they got to know each other, and it turned out they loved the classics and were both avid book collectors. They eventually invited each other to their homes to view their collections, and that birthday party to which James had invited Robert was the first time Robert had attended James’ birthday party.”
“Why was Robert carrying that coin in his pocket?”
“It turned out he regarded it as some good-luck charm. He always took it with him wherever he went, and partly because it was a very rare coin.”
“And George?”
“He took it with him to brag about it at the party.”
“And he did.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know the odds against that incident happening at the party? Two people carrying an old specie of coin from the same mint?”
“I don’t know. A million to one?”
“Maybe more. It’s like lightning striking the same place three times in succession.”
Jim paused. Then he called a waiter and ordered two more buckets of beer before dipping into his left pocket to retrieve something. It turned out to be a small coin.
“This is not nearly as valuable as those two coins in your story,” he said. “But it’s valuable nonetheless and very dear to me for sentimental reasons. Maybe I’ll tell you the story behind it next time.”
“Okay. But what if you went to a birthday party and someone was carrying a coin similar to yours and bragged about it and then the coin got lost? What would you do?”
“The chances against that happening would again be a million to one or more, but to be safe I’d show the host my coin the moment he welcomed me.”
“Wouldn’t your host find that strange?”
“Not if I told him your Coin Story at an appropriate time afterwards. I’m sure he’ll like it, and my coin will be safe.”
Cesar Barrioquinto is an editorial consultant.