Chapter IV

Betty’s cheeks were flushed when she reached her desk again. Over and over she rehearsed the bit of dialogue:

“They think—well, that maybe my interest in you is just personal.” (With tenderness.)

“Gee, I hope it ain’t.” (Blurted.)

What was the use?

Perfunctorily, with her red pencil, she marked the applause mail. There was the “Uncle Dick” pile, and “the Joy Boys” pile, and the “Mysterious Melody Maker” stack, and there were the “appreciation postal cards.”

On these cards the fans painstakingly wrote down the names of features and marked each with a cross under the brackets labeled “excellent,” “good,” “fair,” “poor.”

What a host of conservatory graduates and neighborhood prodigies and church choirs had come and gone and been swallowed up by silence! Maybe a stray cross for some of them on one of the postal cards. But seldom an avalanche echo of the kind needed to open Henri’s eyes.

Betty slit envelopes with a quick slice that came from long practice. Sorted the letters as to States. Marveled at the freakish handwriting. Smiled at the strange letterheads.

Four mails a day. The late afternoon one was not so heavy. That gave time for typing excerpts, filling out reports. Dull routine work that was lightened, maybe, by munching on candy.

Visitors at the rail asking for “the man who hired the performers.” German opera singers, Scandinavian, Russian. Vaudeville actors. Chautauqua lecturers. Women’s club speakers. Mothers with child pianists.

Routine.

The years stretching ahead. Sorting applause mail. Going out to lunch. Coming back. Al Somers and his wisecracks at the desk. Ed Barton at his. Both ineligible.

Henri Salzman coming in at the same time each afternoon and hanging up his umbrella. Answering the phone. Somebody you could half understand explaining in detail about having interference from station WXKP. Who cared?

The world might be divided these days between those who were wild to broadcast and those who were willing to listen in, but Betty Parsons had dreams of something else. Looked like it was just going to remain a dream.

Friday came and the hands of the clock crept toward the hour of four. Al and Ed were busy writing their “hooey” announcements. Folks believed Bert Hall thought all that stuff up at the microphone, just as he went along—mathematics, musical history, poetry and all.

Well, let ’em think so. Henri had turned on the loud speaker. There was a grind to it—had been for a long time and nobody had fixed it.

“Recognize it, Betty?” Henri called out.

They were all grinning.

Betty recognized it.

The whole bunch had dropped work to twist about in their chairs.

“Can hardly hear the uke,” Henri commented, listening soberly, with trained ear.

“You can hear enough of it,” chortled Al Somers.

Betty continued to sort letters. The boy hadn’t anything, really, when you listened without bias. She was relieved when Henri ordered the program shut off.

Henri came over to Betty’s desk.

“I’ll keep my word,” he promised, not unkindly. “He gets another ‘break’ next Tuesday. Lacks R. P.—radio personality. But as a plumber, maybe—”

But Betty, for once, came back with no fiery retort. Just kept on sorting mail.

It was odd that most of the mail was applause mail, or nothing. The great “unseen audience” was not given to booing or hissing. If it didn’t care for a thing, it simply damned by silence.

Only certain types of sopranos seemed to come in for real roastings. The average program that failed to “click” was apparently regarded as what Al Somers referred to as “just one of those things.”