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to mix concrete, right?” And someone laughed.
    That, then, was the incredible story. Good God! Harold Sprague had been a friend at Yale, and before that, a friend at prep school. They had traveled in Europe together, and their families had been summertime neighbors in Maine. It wasimpossible to associate him with a dirty kickback scheme. This kid, this Jerry Victor, had most certainly not understood correctly and had probably not even heard correctly. Most likely he had some agenda of his own; he had perhaps been reprimanded and was seeking revenge; or he was simply a radical who lied because he wanted, on principle, to undermine a company, that being the true motive of many a whistleblower these days. So Lewis reasoned.
    Or so he had reasoned then. Time and events had tempered that first certainty. Reflecting, he gazed out now upon the lights that dotted darkened Washington. No doubt, he could admit, he had been somewhat dazzled by the name of Sprague and should not have been. He winced as he recalled that day.
    “This is a preposterous accusation!” he had said. “You didn’t even see the men.”
    “I know Mr. Sprague’s voice.”
    “ ‘Know his voice’! No, young man, that’s pretty flimsy evidence. I suggest you forget about it, do your job, and take care of yourself.”
    After admonishing and then dismissing the fellowwith proper dignity, he had mentioned, as if it were a joke, the absurd affair to Gene.
    “All the same, it should be looked into,” Gene said.
    “What? You can’t be serious. Do you actually want me to insult Harold Sprague with rot like that?”
    “When you come down to it, what do we know about him or his suppliers? This is the first contracting job we’ve ever given him.”
    “We know his reputation up and down the West Coast.”
    “We shouldn’t have changed. We’ve had the same reliable contractors for the last twenty years.”
    “I wanted to give him a chance, now that he’s expanding in the East. His price was competitive, wasn’t it?”
    “I don’t agree. We definitely ought to speak about this. I’ll go if you feel uncomfortable about it.”
    “Gene, I forbid you from doing it.”
    Nevertheless, Gene did it.
    “I was tactful,” he reported a week or two later. “I said that I thought he should know therewas a rumor, not that I believed it, just that he should know it. Of course he was indignant, furious—oh, not at me, don’t worry—”
    “I think you’ve made a big mistake because of a disgruntled crank.”
    “I don’t know about that. The kid came to see me a few days ago. He’s been having a tough time, and he’s leaving his job.”
    “Good riddance. He’s an arrogant troublemaker. I’ve asked around and found that nobody likes him. He even stirred things up in the union.”
    “As to that, I don’t know. But I do know that I can look at a man and most of the time I can tell whether he’s an honorable, truthful human being or not. I believe that boy is.”
    “That’s a doubtful statement, Gene. Think about it.”
    “No more doubtful than your belief in a man because you went to Yale together.”
    And so, a slight distance grew between the brothers. It was nothing overt, rather a subtle coolness, as when a draft stirs the air in the corner of a room that is otherwise tight and warm. Itwas still remembered when, two years later, the grand hotel was finished.…
    And what a jewel it was! Here was grandeur without ostentation, which he despised. When the lines were right, there was no need for fussy ornament.
    Standing at the place where a blooming low hedge divided the lawn from the sand, he looked beyond the great arch, all the way through the depth of the structure, to the opposite arch and the alley of royal palms that stretched from the front entrance to the road. If you were standing at the front entrance, you would see only blue water and, at this moment, the black nighttime sky, in which mountainous clouds hid a few blinking stars.
    It will