An American told me to go to a tire shop across town. He told me to say his name when I got there. I said, "May I have something in writing?" He said, "Just say Tony sent you." I did not doubt Tony. I doubted the mechanism. A name is air. It leaves no record. Anyone can say it. In my country a referral travels as a letter, on paper, folded, from one hand to another. Even then it is often ignored. I drove across town rehearsing four words. The man behind the counter did not look up when I walked in. I said, "Tony sent me." He looked up. I have never seen a face change like that for free. He came out from behind the counter. He asked how Tony was. He looked at my tires himself instead of sending somebody. The price he gave me was not the price on the wall. He did not explain the difference. I did not ask. Four words. No paper. No seal. No crest. A man's name, carried in the mouth of a stranger, changing the behavior of a business. Here is the part that took me a year. Tony was not being generous with the tire man's money. Tony was spending his own reputation on me. Quietly. In a parking lot. On the assumption that I would not embarrass him. I have been careful with that name ever since. I do not use it for small things. Last month somebody asked me where to get a windshield done. I gave him the address. Then I heard the sentence leave me, and I felt the weight of it on the way out. "Tell him I sent you."