“Probably the Everts-Hall Agency. They’ve always had the He account.”
A woman powdered her nose. “That means Tony Vaux will be the producer. Good old Tony! He used me twice last season. I might drop in on Tony and give him my best smile.”
A man said: “No chance, child. This show will go stag.” “Stag” meant an all-male cast.
Joe drank it in. He came to know them all—the fortunate few who passed into the inner office and the idle group that was very often thoughtlessly in Miss Robb’s way. They gave Joe a rich sense of warmth and comradeship. Spontaneously he was Joe and the others became Barbara, or Jane, or Bill, or Jim. The free-and-easy familiarity filled him with a glow. Once, hearing these persons on the air, he had looked upon them in envy as beings miraculously set apart, and now he was one of them, accepted. Archie Munn had pointed out Tony Vaux and he had been awed; but now, when the red-faced agency producer breezed toward the inner office with a boisterous “Howdy, folks?” his voice lifted freely with the others. “Hi, Tony.” He was in show business. He belonged.
But easy familiarity faltered at two places. Something about the brooding Vic Wylie.... Everybody else said “Vic,” but the “Vic” stuck in Joe’s throat. And there was a gentle old trouper the group hailed as Pop. The Pop also stuck. To Joe, these men were Mr. Wylie and Mr. Bartell.
Pop Bartell came in every morning, always wearing the same blue suit with the white pin stripe, always with his linen immaculate. Often he would walk into the office so quietly that Miss Robb would not know he was there until he spoke. From the rear his slim, straight back gave him an appearance of youth. But his voice, the way it broke on a word, stamped him. Pop was old.
“Good morning, Miss Robb.” His greeting, courtly and deferential, never varied. “Is there a letter this morning? A telephone message? I’m expecting a call—there’s a fat part coming up. No? Thank you. To-morrow, perhaps,” Miss Robb would agree.
If the old man was ever disappointed, he gave no sign. Bright-eyed, he would give the room a gallant greeting.
The day came when anger mounted in Joe. The morning loungers had trouped out and taken away their gay, bright gossip; he and Archie, Lucille and Stella Joyce remained, as they remained each day, for the moment when driving, demanding Vic Wylie might need them. At one o’clock they went out to eat at a thirty-five-cent restaurant.
Pop Bartell was on Joe’s mind. “If somebody’s promised to write or telephone, why don’t they do it?”