From  Asa Benjamin Winkler 
Sent  Sunday, July 22, 2007 10:14 am 
Subject  Re: Manson's "Maze" 
Room Four:

> "Shall we toss a coin?" I asked.  "Or have you made up your minds?"
> They hadn't made up their minds, and they had no coins.

It is curious for the narrator to mention specifically that a fairly  
good-sized group of people has not a single coin amongst them.

In Greek mythology, the ferryman Charon transported the newly dead  
across the river Acheron into the Underworld.  His price for this  
trip was one silver coin, so corpses in ancient Greece were buried  
with a coin in their mouth to pay the fare.

Those without a coin could not pass into Hades, and were condemned to  
wander the banks of the Acheron for a hundred years.

- Benjamin Winkler