“Five minutes after we signed off last night,” Stella Joyce fluttered, “Amby Carver was around wanting to know what had happened. He knew the script had been fluffed up with an egg-beater.”
“Amby’s worried about his ten per cent,” Joe whispered bitterly. Amby, his agent, hadn’t bothered to phone him.
Wylie, strained, came from the control-room and drew him aside. “Kid, stay away. I know how you feel, but worry won’t get you anything. The script’s blue, the cast’s blue, and your face’s as long as four Sundays. Forget radio until you clear up. Interest yourself in something else. Read a book, steal a car, make a mud pie. Do anything so long as it isn’t radio. See me Saturday.”
Vic had said to read a book. Books flashed a picture before Joe of his father’s business. He tried to force his mind to dwell on how the Thomas Carlin store could sell more books. Fifty thousand listeners! What could you say that would make them book-hungry? Thomas Carlin Presents To-day’s Book. Curt Lake had been right, too. You couldn’t snip an idea out of the air; you couldn’t deliberately dig up an idea as you would a garden bulb. Thomas Carlin Presents.... The effort died in failure. His mind refused to freshen, to come alive.
A mound of letters awaited him at the Everts-Hall Agency. He signed them and rode dully out to the Northend.
That afternoon’s broadcast was worse than the dress. The continuity of the show had been broken, and weak, forced, hack-toiled scripts had demoralized the cast. Stella Joyce sank with the others.
“Vic doesn’t want me to come to the rehearsals until I’m better,” Joe said at supper in a hoarse whisper.
“Isn’t that wise?” Kate Carlin asked.
“Joe!” Tom Carlin picked his words carefully. “Is there any chance of another actor being called in for the part?”
Joe didn’t want to think of that.