“You may have something there,” Kate Carlin admitted.
“Ambrose Carver always has something there. Take another angle. Without an agent Joe tries to sell himself where there is no market. One station is foreign language; another has mostly spot commercials and recordings. There’s nothing for Joe at these stations, but he doesn’t know it. He finds it out in time. I save him all that time. For fifty per cent he buys everything it has taken me years to learn. I save him from mistakes.”
The silence lingered.
Amby asked shrewdly: “Would it be worth money to be saved from mistakes in your business, Mr. Carlin?”
Tom Carlin cleared his throat. Joe waited anxiously. Nothing was said.
“Another mistake,” Amby went on, “is to think because Joe has a good audition he’s a radio actor. He has to learn. Will a station teach him? No. Not after he’s sixteen; they say eighteen is too late. They haven’t time. So who rehearses him? I do. I worry for him, and think for him, and plan for him. You know what radio stars get? You know what is paid for the Eddie Cantor show?”
“Don’t give Joe those ideas,” Mrs. Carlin said sharply.
“Mustn’t he have a beginning?” Amby asked. He walked to the table and laid a fountain pen beside the contracts.
Tom Carlin glanced at his wife. Whatever he saw there sent his glance to his son’s face. Slowly, after a moment, he picked up the pen.
“Here,” said Amby expansively, “is where we start to go.” He folded one copy of the contract. Joe went with him to the porch.