The "Heads" side of the great coin bore a _front_ view of the blind goddess of justice, with her scales. The "Tails" side had a _rear_ view of the same lady.
It was rather crudely done, but time was short. "It'll have to do," the general chuckled, as the plane bore him back to Jerusalem.
When the appointed day came, the United Nations conference room in Jerusalem was jammed with Israeli and Arab officials, and with a pack of correspondents who had magically appeared.
General O'Reilly had decided against asking each side to put its agreement into writing. A true gentleman's agreement shouldn't be written, he concluded. He merely asked the leaders for each side if they agreed to abide by the fall of the coin. Solemnly, both assented.
Courteously, the Israelis had allowed the Arabs to call while the coin was still in the air. There was silence as General O'Reilly flipped it high up towards the ceiling.
The spinning coin glittered, falling onto the green baize table. The general looked at it. The goddess had her back turned.
"It is tails," he announced, and the Arab delegation broke into happy shouts.
And, astonishingly, that was that. The leading Tel-Aviv newspaper summed up Israeli feeling when it wrote in an editorial: "Certainly there were many heavy hearts in our country when the coin fell against us. But let us show the world that we are true sportsmen. We risked, and we lost. Let this be the end of it."
Work began on the dams at last, without interference or protest. Not a word was ever written on paper, but it was the only agreement between the two countries that was scrupulously kept by both sides.
It was, of course, a wonderful story. The name of Terence O'Reilly swam suddenly into the headlines, and his wife began keeping a scrapbook of all the clippings. One among them was destined to be more potent in world affairs than all the rest. It was a "profile" of General O'Reilly published in a great American magazine, and it was notable for two things.
To begin with, it was the author of this profile who first gave the coin the name by which it soon became so famous--the "Golden Judge."
But it also contained a casual, seemingly insignificant remark by General O'Reilly. When the interviewer had asked how he happened to think of the coin-tossing idea, the general had grinned. "Why not?" he said. "Aren't the Irish the gamblingest people on earth?"
