ing eyes,
General O'Reilly read that the Chinese Nationalist Foreign Minister had
taken up the challenge. He offered to toss a coin with the Chinese
Communists for Quemoy and Matsu!

"I'll be jiggered!" the general breathed. "They'll fight about
everything else, but be damned if they'll admit the Irish are bigger
gamblers than the Chinese! Now let's see what the Commies say."

Peking was silent for two weeks. Then, in a broadcast from Radio Peking,
Chou En-Lai made his reply.

He agreed--but with conditions. He insisted on a neutral commission to
supervise the toss, half Communist members, half non-Communist. World
observers, weary of neutral commissions that never achieved anything,
interpreted this as a delaying tactic and agreed the whole thing would
fall through.

"This is further proof," the Nationalist Foreign Minister commented with
icy scorn, "that the Communists are no longer real Chinese. For any
Chinese worthy of the name would not be afraid to risk the fall of the
coin."

But Marx had not quite liquidated the gambling fever that runs strong in
the blood of any Chinese, be he ever so Communist.

Stung, Chou En-Lai retorted: "We agree! Let the coin decide!"

It was agreed that Prime Minister Nehru of India, as a neutral, should
supervise the matter, and that New Delhi would be the scene of the
actual tossing. And Nehru thought it fitting to invite General O'Reilly,
as the father of the whole thing, to bring the same "Golden Judge" to
India, to be used again.

The general came gladly, but declined to make the toss himself. "My
country is too closely involved in this matter," he explained, "and
there might be talk if an American made the toss."

He suggested Nehru himself do it, and the Prime Minister agreed.

The actual tossing was done in the great governmental palace, and
Communist China won. Chiang Kai Shek's delegate bowed impassively and
said coolly that his government yielded without question to the goddess
of chance.

That night the Indian Prime Minister was host to a glittering official
banquet to celebrate the ending of the "offshore island" crisis.

"And we must lift our glasses," he said eloquently after dinner, "to the
man who discovered this eminently sane method of settling quarrels--a
method so sensible, so fair that it is difficult to believe that in all
the world's long search for peace, it has not been discovered before. I
give you General O'Reilly!"

The general rose to loud