History: Romance of the Stone

"We tried the detector all around and got the loudest buzz at the southwest corner," reported a triumphant engineer. "The plate appears to be between two stones about chest high from the outside ground level, about the second or third stone up." Some exuberant historical sleuths suggested that cuts be made in the stone to retrieve the plate, study it and then return it to its hallowed place.

They had not counted on the Washington Post's eruption at the idea of violating sacred stones. Nor had they figured on Truman, who said it was O.K. to take a look at the plate if it was uncovered in the normal renovation process but vetoed any prodding around in solid walls that did not need replacing or repairing.

The Truman crews did find something. They uncovered a marble box under the White House entrance hall. Inside the box: an empty bottle of Hunter's Baltimore Rye, apparently placed there when Prohibition was gaining momentum and hovering darkly over bibulous politicians. A White House "ghost" was stirring.

But mysteries never die. In the next years, a radar device from the Virginia department of transportation was trundled up to the building's walls, and blasts of shortwave were unleashed, yielding some encouraging but gauzy "reflections" in the southwest corner. Not good enough.

Next came the dowsers with their twitching shafts. Two came from North Carolina. One joined from Pennsylvania, and among the three of them, they managed to zero in on other White House stones in totally different places.

Time for a 17th toast: To the White House at 200 years. May it ever live with all its glorious history--and its secrets intact.