Joe swung about.
The man with the shadow of black mustache shook hands warmly. “I was afraid you’d get away before I got out here. Congratulations. I wasn’t surprised and John Dennis shouldn’t have been, either. That was the stout man—director of programs. Great friend of mine, Dennis. I told him you’d wow them.”
Joe knew an unbelievable, an incredible warmth. “You mean I was good?”
“Ambrose Carver don’t call them wrong. Last week I saw you at Northend High in—in—” Mr. Carver snapped annoyed fingers. Why couldn’t he remember that letter?
Joe said eagerly: “The Prince Laughs Last.”
“When you see shows, shows, shows, titles get away from you,” Amby Carver said ruefully. A nice touch, he assured himself; just matter-of-fact enough. “I spotted you before the first-act curtain.”
Joe’s lips parted.
“I came to tell Dennis to call you in for an audition and there was your letter on his desk. I told him here was a kid he wasn’t going to keep waiting; it had to be now. Well, wasn’t it? Weren’t you in there to-day? That’s record speed for an audition. Ambrose Carver’s telling you.”
Yes, Joe thought, he’d been in Studio K to-day—and all at once he was living the bleakness of his discouraged walk back to the wooden bench. “Did Mr. Dennis like me?”
“He thinks you’re tops.”