Jubal Harshaw—Ben Caxton

Jubal Harshaw and Ben Caxton are bound by a relationship that moves easily between practical confidence, irreverent friendship, and the serious obligations of water brotherhood. Jubal treats Ben’s disappearance as a danger to be reasoned through rather than a mystery to be chased blindly; Ben, in turn, returns to Jubal with private fears he cannot comfortably take elsewhere. Their intimacy is marked by teasing, candor, and an understanding that some matters demand a different degree of care.

Trust Under the Threat of Ben’s Disappearance

When Jill arrives at Jubal’s home and says that Ben sent her to him, Jubal immediately takes the report seriously. Her explanation identifies Ben as the person who directed her to Jubal, and Jubal’s response is interrupted by the urgent discovery that Mike’s heart has stopped. Even amid that emergency, Ben’s name becomes part of the household’s unfolding crisis: Jubal has to assess what has happened to him and whether intervening could make matters worse.

At first, Jubal had shared the easy assumption that Ben was away pursuing another story. Ben’s assistant, Kilgallen, had a Statprinter message apparently sent by Ben saying he would be gone for several days. But Jubal’s investigators checked the record, including a photograph of the message, and found that it was genuine. The document’s authenticity did not settle the question of Ben’s whereabouts; it sharpened it. Jubal points out that the message was filed at Philadelphia-Paoli Station Landing Flat at 10:34 on Thursday morning, transmitted within minutes, and received immediately by Ben’s office. A message sent to his own workplace during working hours, rather than a telephone call, could be a deliberate signal or a decoy.

Jubal considers the possibility that Ben believed his phone was tapped but his Statprinter was not, or that he suspected both channels were being monitored and wanted the message to persuade watchers that he had left Washington. That possibility changes the moral stakes of finding him: an apparently missing friend might be using disappearance as protection. Jubal warns Jill that a search conducted clumsily could call attention to Ben’s absence and endanger his life. He notes, too, that Ben has always worked close to danger, and that this assignment may be more perilous than any he has taken before.

The appearance of Ben’s daily column offers no reliable reassurance. Kilgallen has kept the column running, apparently through material already prepared or by writing in Ben’s place; its safe subject, campaign funds, helps preserve the public impression that Ben remains at his usual work. Jubal reads that continuity not as proof of safety but as cover that Ben may have arranged because he could not safely contact even Jill. His concern is therefore active but restrained: friendship requires him to resist the impulse to expose Ben simply to resolve uncertainty.

A Return to the Household

When Ben later appears at Jubal’s home, the welcome is immediate and playful. Jubal recognizes him and says they will let him live this time, then asks what he will drink. Ben refuses a drink because it is early and calls Jubal a professional bad influence; Jubal answers by ordering warm milk and joking that Ben is sick. Ben specifies the bottle by its three dimples and asks for a private conversation, a small domestic familiarity that sits naturally alongside their more consequential confidences.

Jubal takes Ben upstairs to his study, while remarking that keeping anything from the people in the household is unlikely. Before the private talk begins, Ben greets the family, and the two men move through the enlarged home together. Ben has not seen the alterations: a new north wing has added two bedrooms and a downstairs bath, and Jubal has created a gallery upstairs. The scene gives their reunion an unceremonious texture. Ben is not treated as a visitor who must be formally received; he belongs enough to notice, and be surprised by, the changed rooms.

Once alone, Ben says that he is unhappy and has fresh troubles, then immediately doubts that he should have come or burdened Jubal with them. Jubal does not force a confession. Instead, he offers to let Ben listen to his own troubles, turning the exchange into a reciprocal opening rather than an interrogation. Ben’s surprise at the idea that Jubal has troubles reveals how he has regarded his older friend: as someone who has mastered the game. Jubal’s invitation makes room for the possibility that even this apparently self-sufficient figure can be confided in and can confide in return.

Candor, Affection, and Respect

Their conversation moves through art, unhappiness, and gossip before Ben can state what brought him there. Jubal’s digression on his own writing gives the friendship a characteristic rhythm: he can speak at length and with force, while Ben waits, then bluntly observes that the conversation has wandered. Jubal accepts the correction, concedes that Ben has the floor, and lets him explain that he has come straight from visiting Mike and Jill after covering the Cape Town conference.

The seriousness of Ben’s report is grounded in personal knowledge, not detached speculation. He had squeezed a day from his work, visited Mike and Jill, and was worried enough by what he saw to stop briefly in Washington, get a few columns ahead, and come directly to Jubal. His request is stark: could Jubal arrange with Douglas to shut off the money and close Mike’s operation? Jubal refuses to treat Mike’s life as something he is entitled to manage. The disagreement does not undo the confidence between the men; it establishes its limits. Ben can ask for intervention, and Jubal can refuse, while still hearing the concern behind the request.

The talk becomes more intimate when Jubal observes that Mike has taken a great deal from the Fosterites, which is part of what worries Ben. Ben then says the matter must be treated as one between water brothers. Jubal accepts the boundary and responds with a joke about carrying poison in a hollow tooth in case he is tortured into revealing a confidence. Ben corrects the premise: members of the inner circle are meant to be able to discorporate voluntarily at any moment, so poison would not be needed. The exchange turns an abstract bond into an explicit practice of trust: Ben identifies the matter as protected, and Jubal signifies that he is willing to hear it under that protection.

Water Brotherhood and the Friendship’s Terms

Jubal’s reminder that Mike is Ben’s water brother draws out the complexity of Ben’s loyalty. Ben acknowledges the bond and says that he loves Mike; he adds that if he ever chose to be gay, Mike would be his only choice. He does not treat affection as a reason to deny what troubles him. On the contrary, he suggests that loving Mike helps him understand why Mike and Jill seem smug. Jubal answers by proposing another possibility—that they may simply hope—and turns the observation back toward Ben, suggesting that Ben himself could be on the list of people who might share that closeness.

The discussion of sexual relationships also tests how each man expects to be treated. Ben remarks that almost everyone assumes Jubal keeps an elaborate harem; they envy him, he says, but also think him a lecherous old goat. Jubal taps the arm of his chair before insisting that, in this matter, he requires the women to treat him with respect. Ben apologizes, having assumed that since Jubal had been willing to discuss Ben’s sex life, Jubal would accept equal frankness about his own. Jubal clarifies that Ben’s question was proper and the side comments had been invited; his claim is specifically that the women’s respect matters to him. Their conversation can be irreverent without making every boundary interchangeable.

That ability to correct a misunderstanding without breaking confidence is central to their friendship. Ben can challenge Jubal’s habits and tease him about his reputation; Jubal can demand respect where he feels it is owed. At the same time, neither reduces the other to a role: Jubal is more than the invulnerable older man Ben imagines, and Ben is more than the fearless reporter whose dangerous assignments have made him a public figure. Their exchanges keep the affection visible without softening disagreement into automatic agreement.

A Relationship That Holds Danger and Difference

The relation first becomes consequential through Jubal’s decision not to rush after Ben, since the possibility of surveillance makes an impulsive search dangerous. Later, Ben’s return confirms that he uses Jubal’s home as a place to bring private worries and ask for help, even when he is unsure whether he should burden his friend. Jubal’s response is not unconditional compliance: he rejects Ben’s proposed financial pressure on Mike, but accepts the confidence behind Ben’s request and listens when the matter is declared a water-brother concern.

The relationship thus joins two kinds of loyalty. Jubal’s care for Ben is practical and cautionary: he studies the Statprinter message, considers how it could misdirect watchers, and refuses to make Ben’s absence more conspicuous. Ben’s trust is direct and personal: he comes back to Jubal, admits unhappiness, speaks of his love for Mike, and marks the limits of disclosure through water brotherhood. Their friendship does not remove risk or settle their disagreements. It gives each man a way to face danger without pretending that affection means either certainty or control.