Chapter VI

“Ten, eleven, twelve letters addressed to Huntley’s Half Hour of Harmony,” Betty was counting gleefully.

“No! Don’t say!” Al Somers called over from his desk, doubtingly.

“It’s a fact,” Betty announced. “And you know, with the letters just starting to come in, what that means.”

She picked up one of the missives that had arrived in a pink envelope. She slit the envelope, removed the contents.

Then, as she read, all the joy went out of her and her face became the color of the vivid stationery:

Your love-making episode late this afternoon was one of
the most natural things ever heard on the air. The feeling
in the voices was so marvelously sincere. Why can’t this
couple be a regular feature on WMQZ?

Crushing the communication, Betty pillowed her head in her arms and let out a wail.

“That darn Max,” she sobbed. “He never shut off the microphone!”

They were crowding above her. She could hear the cruel “slit, slit” of envelopes.

“Yes, sir,” Al Somers was saying, “and every one of ’em for Huntley’s Half Hour of Harmony. What kind of a stunt did he have yesterday, Betty? What you mean about Max not shutting off the microphone? No kiddin’, the boy’s proved a wow. Listen:

That young love feature this afternoon was a riot. So
many of those teams sound stilted, but this was something
entirely novel and clever. Give us more.

Have been wondering if you’d ever hit on something new.
Who are Bob and Betty in real life? They sure had me glued
to the loud speaker this afternoon. Even the kiss came in
clear as a bell. If—

Betty lifted her head from her arms and let out a shriek. She shoved the whole batch of mail on the floor.

It would keep coming. This was just the first day. The fiends! The far country would be heard from later. Betty knew how the mail ran. And, at this rate, Huntley’s Half Hour, Huntley’s Harmony, Half Huntley’s—

You wouldn’t be able to stuff it in drawers to hide it. There weren’t enough desk drawers. It couldn’t be kept from the prying eyes of the office bunch even if you stayed in from lunch.

The stream would have to be stopped at its source to do any good, and it was too late for that. “Thoughts unexpressed might sometimes fall back dead,” but not after they’d been spilled over the radio.

Listeners-in. Huh! Eavesdroppers, that’s what they were. If only Al and Ed and the girls and the whole office bunch were ’way out in that far country where the sheep herder was, forty miles from a railroad. If only—

And then Betty smiled as she sniffed. She had almost forgotten.

The smile continued to play about her lips even though a boy in uniform now stood at the rail with a couple of Harmony Half Hour special delivery letters—even though Henri Salzman had just come in to hang up his umbrella.

“Mail record being broken, Henri,” Al announced, rubbing his hands.

“Yeah,” Henri commented. His eyebrows lifted. He was all interest.

“And by Huntley’s Half Hour of Harmony.”

“Don’t say,” Henri whistled. “You mean on his yesterday’s program? Why, what’s the count so far? Shows you never can tell.”

Betty stood and faced them.

“You and your applause mail,” she poohed. “I don’t have to read it and weep.”

She walked over and jammed on her hat, that fitted closely and becomingly to her reddish swirl bob.

“I hope that gas filling station Bob buys is so far away from a microphone we can’t even get static. Applause mail? Applesauce!”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Argosy, All-Story Weekly Magazine, August 4, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]