“He wants you in at four o’clock to read a part.”
“At four?” Gentle Pop Bartell began to fumble.
Joe could not bear to look on. Lucille Borden, the tough girl of last season’s Years of Danger show, bit her lips.
“I think I can make it.” Pop Bartell was in control of himself; he had his front. “I’m sure I can be there at four. Quite sure.”
Not until the old man had departed, gallant and gentle, did Joe turn back to the room. All the frothy gossip of the loungers had stopped.
“Pop,” Archie Munn murmured, “that was an exit.”
Joe thought: “Tony wants him to read the Ike Totten part in the He show.” How long since Pop had had a part? The boy experienced an exhilarating excitement, as though this were happening to him.
The hands of the clock ran out the morning; the inner office door remained closed as though Vic Wylie had shut himself away.
“Who’s in with him?” Joe asked from a chair tilted against the wall.
“Nobody,” Miss Robb answered.