He felt that the trust was well-conceived. The income from a block of blue-chip securities would endow a new chair for Kender in the medical school. Longwood’s salary as Chief of Surgery was more than adequate for his immediate needs, but he had a New Englander’s innate aversion for dipping into capital.

The bulk of his estate would not be added to the trust until after his death, when a faculty board of advisors would be named to spend the income for the benefit of the medical school.

“I hope that advisory group won’t have to be formed for a long time,” Greene said after he had read the papers.

The remark was as close as he had ever heard the banker come to making an emotional statement.

“Thank you, Gilbert,” he said. “Can I offer you a drink?”

“A little brandy.”

Dr. Longwood opened the portable liquor stand behind his desk and poured from one of the old blue bottles. Only one glass, none for himself.

He was particularly fond of the little liquor cabinet, all lovely deep mahogany and old silver. He had bought it one afternoon at an antique auction on Newbury Street, only two hours after voting in favor of Bester Kender’s appointment to the hospital staff. Kender already had made a name for himself as a transplantation innovator in Cleveland, and that afternoon Harland Longwood had been newly conscious of the emergence of younger and brighter men in his world. He paid more than the little antique bar was worth, partly because he knew that Frances would have liked it and partly because he told himself with black humor that if ever the young turks moved him into a quiet corner he could fill the bottles with his favorite booze and anesthetize the long afternoons away.

Now, ten years later, he was still the Chief of Surgery, he reminded himself with some satisfaction. Kender had attracted other young geniuses to the staff but each shed his bright light over a narrow field. It still took a grizzled old general surgeon to put all the pieces together and run the place like a surgical service.

Greene sniffed, sipped, rolled the brandy on his palate, swallowed slowly. “It’s a generous gift, Harland.”

Longwood shrugged. They shared the same commitment to the hospital and the medical school. Although Greene wasn’t a medical man his father had been Physician-in-Chief and he had been named to the board almost automatically as soon as his position in the banking community had made him an asset to the hospital. Longwood knew that Gilbert’s will carried stipulations that would benefit the hospital even more than his own.

“Are you certain you haven’t allowed your loyalty to this place to cause you to neglect the other beneficiaries?” Greene asked. “I notice that the only other bequests are for ten thousand dollars apiece to Mrs. Marjorie Snyder of Newton Centre and Mrs. Rafael Meomartino of the Back Bay.”

“Mrs. Snyder is an old friend,” Dr. Longwood said.