Season's Greetings from Car Talk Plaza!

Hello friends! The Puzzler is taking short break, but we'll be back in the new year with more historic, folkloric, and occasionally sophomoric puzzlers!

Now, without further ado, the answer to the most recent puzzler!

An Old, Old Puzzler

Time for the new puzzler. Well, the new old puzzler. This one is from a while ago. It is very old. But still good! Here goes.

A fellow enters a subway station in our fair city.

He bounded down the stairs.

And in the subway station is a woman in the little booth dispensing subway tokens which cost 40 cents a piece. 40 cents! Yeah, this is an old puzzle.

Tokens then were 40 cents a piece, if you can believe it.

The man hands the woman behind the window one dollar. There are no words spoken. No words are spoken at all because the man can't speak. He is deaf.

Without words being spoken and without any hand signs or signaling, the woman dispensing the tickets, the attendant, hands back to the man two tokens, and 20 cents change.

The question is, how did she know the man wanted two tokens?

And remember, no words were spoken, no sign language was used, and he had no companion at that time.

How did the token attendant know to sell him two tokens and give him 20 cents change for his dollar?