“Hello, Joe.” The man calmly clipped the papers together. “Been reading anything lately?”
“No time,” said Joe.
“A remarkably busy world,” Mr. Fairchild commented dryly. “Nobody has time for reading. And yet here”—a sweep of his hand took in the department—“here’s everything. Humor and pathos, the stories of great nations and great men, drama, and poetry and essays. You can take a book and travel to the end of the world. Romance and adventure. It’s all here. Have people forgotten the magic land of books?”
“Why not remind them?” Joe asked.
“How?”
A woman entered the department and Mr. Fairchild went forward to meet her.
Tom Carlin called from the office. “I’m leaving in a half-hour. We can go home together.”
A half-hour meant a half-hour of respite. The boy’s mind drifted back in excitement to FKIP, to the audition letter he had written, to the unknown producer rehearsing in Studio B, to the Years of Danger show. He thought of Mr. Fairchild and of books, and the two streams of thought somehow drew together and mingled. An announcer’s voice, breathless, echoed in his memory. “Munson’s brings you to-morrow’s styles.” He began to tingle. Why couldn’t people be told about books, too? Thomas Carlin presents—
“All set, Joe,” his father said.
The thought stayed with him while they took the car from a parking lot and moved in crawls and spurts through the downtown traffic.