At four o’clock he was back at rehearsal. And now, suddenly, all the light-hearted chaos was gone. Dennis ran them through the show against the watch. A minute and a half too long. Lines were cut from the script, lines and more lines. This was the never-ending, nerve-racking struggle of radio to compress shows into time limits. Strain crept into the room; Joe felt tension drag at his own body. Another rehearsal, and they were forty seconds over. More lines came out. They rehearsed a third time. The eyes of John Dennis were glued to a watch; a pencil hovered over the script, noting minutes and seconds.
“Bingo!” he cried. “Fourteen minutes, leaving a fat minute for the commercial plugs. Ten to-morrow. A dress, and then we cut.”
“Dress,” Joe knew, meant a dress rehearsal. The dial in the tower of Munson’s department store said seven o’clock. He clung to a strap in a crowded Northend bus and felt drained. He was late for dinner.
“Tired?” his mother asked.
“Dead,” he said. “It takes it out of you. We finish to-morrow. With rehearsals and the cutting I ought to get about fifty dollars.”
“For about eight hours of actual work,” his father commented.
Food had revived Joe. The thought of fifty dollars didn’t make him feel any worse. He grinned. “That’s radio, Dad.”
In the morning the cast was through with the narrow room off the press-radio bureau. Dennis led them to Studio K. The dress was smooth. Just before Joe stepped to the mike, Vic Wylie came into the studio. His reddish hair was in disorder; his eyes had their perpetual look of a man hard pressed for time. He whispered to Dennis as Joe began to read; he looked at Joe once, finished what he had to say to Dennis, moved toward the door, and stopped. Joe finished reading and left the mike.
Vic Wylie said: “When you find time, kid, drop in at my office. Something may turn up.”
All Joe could think of was what Amby had said: “The best producer in the city.”