The A.G.A. still existed, instiff, hurt dignity, but people referred to it as the Old Folks’ Home. TheCouncil of American Builders ruled the profession and talked about a closedshop, though no one had yet devised a way of achieving that. Whenever anarchitect’s name appeared in Ellsworth Toohey’s column, it was always that ofAugustus Webb. At thirty-nine, Keating heard himself described as old-fashioned.He had given up trying to understand. He knew dimly that the explanation of thechange swallowing the world was of a nature he preferred not to know. In hisyouth he had felt an amicable contempt for the works of Guy Francon or RalstonHolcombe, and emulating them had seemed no more than innocent quackery. But heknew that Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb represented so impertinent, so viciousa fraud that to suspend the evidence of his eyes was beyond his elasticcapacity. He had believed that people found greatness in Holcombe and there hadbeen a reasonable satisfaction in borrowing his borrowed greatness.
