Mander waited until they were gone. “Got a half-dollar that isn’t working, Joe?” he asked quietly.
Joe dug into his pocket. The bread-and-butter hunt had followed him to the Everts-Hall Agency.
“Dennis is making another Mr. America show,” Mander said. “He’s calling me in. They expect to sell the show.”
Joe thought: “They’re always expecting to sell a show—to-morrow.” The day ran on, and in the late afternoon he tuned Tony’s radio for Bush-League Larry.
Sonny Baker, as a brash, hot-headed young man beginning to make his mark in professional baseball, gave a good, clear-cut performance. But what, Joe asked himself in dismay, had happened to Pop Bartell? When Tony had been putting the show together for the He people Pop had been superb—mellowly in character. To-day he was jerky and uncertain as though he were having trouble with his lines. What was it, the old trouble? Was Pop still trying to maintain a false front of youth and refusing to wear glasses?
Tony was beaming when he returned from FFOM. Bush-League Larry was clicking; he’d been told the Journal was giving the show a nice notice to-morrow. Joe, ready to start for home, lingered.
“Is this a regular stop on the rounds, Tony?” He had never made any of the agencies a stop.
“A small stop,” said Tony. “If we have a show coming up, we become a big stop.”
“That 4:15 spot—Dennis is cutting a platter.”
“That’s off, Joe. He’s filling with studio music.”