“That, together with the talks on television, should put this thing over with the biggest bang in years. We’ll probably need some more stuff from you, historical background, rules and regulations, that kind of thing, but Cave will tell you what he wants. We’ve hired a dozen people already to take care of the mail and inquiries. There’s also a lecture tour being prepared, all the main cities, while....”
“Paul, you’re not trying to make a religion of this, are you?” I could hold it back no longer even though both time and occasion were all wrong for such an outburst.
“Religion? Hell, no ... but we’ve got to organize. We’ve got to get this to as many people as we can. People have started looking to us (to him, that is) for guidance. We can’t let them down.”
Clarissa’s maid ushered in a Western Union messenger, laden with telegrams. “Over three hundred,” said the boy. “The station said to send them here.”
Paul paid him jubilantly and, in the excitement, I slipped away.
3
The results of the broadcast were formidable. My small book which until then had enjoyed the obscurity of being briefly noted among the recent books was taken up by excited editors who used it as a basis for hurried but exuberant accounts of the new marvel.
One night a week for the rest of that winter Cave appeared before the shining glass eye of the world and on each occasion new millions in all parts of the country listened and saw and pondered this unexpected phenomenon, the creation of their own secret anxieties and doubts, a central man.
The reactions were too numerous for me to recollect in any order or with any precise detail; but I do recall the first few months vividly: after that of course the work moved swiftly of its own and one lost track of events which tended to blur, the way casualties late in a large war do, not wringing the wearied heart as the death of one or a particular few might earlier have done.
A few days after the first broadcast, I went to see Paul at the offices which he had taken in the Empire State Building ... as high up as possible, I noted with amusement: always the maximum, the optimum.