Tony’s voice had changed. “You get used to it. It’s the system; it’s show business. Will they feel any better if we slam the door on them and lock them out? Anyway, we’re not guilty of sustaining. When we put on a show we have a paid cast.” Joe said slowly: “How long before you’re used to it?” “I don’t know,” Tony said in that same changed voice. “I’ve been here only five years.” He went to his desk, wrote for a while, and swung around with a paper in his hands. “Last year I laid out more than four hundred dollars in small loans. Most of it’s gone for good. How are they going to pay back? Where are they going to get it?” He held out the paper. “Call these people in, Joe. We’ll start to audition.” Joe, sitting at a telephone, went down the list of calls. Mander at ten to-morrow morning, somebody else at eleven, somebody else at noon. The list ran two and one-half days. Fourteen actors and actresses coming in—and only four parts. Waiting for a number to answer, he thought of Tony with a stir of emotion. This Tony who boomed and glad-handed wasn’t the real Tony at all. The boom and the glad hand were front. The real Tony was as soft-hearted as brooding Vic Wylie. Mander arrived next morning at ten sharp. Joe thought: “He’s dressed for the part.” Mander wore a shriekingly loud tie, an exaggerated high collar, and shoes glaringly yellow. Did this trick of dressing like a small-town wise guy add anything to a reading? Joe wondered. “Greetings,” Tony boomed. “Waiting for you.” “Considering what you’re going to get,” Mander popped off, “you should have stayed awake all night.” He looked toward Joe and made a blithe motion with one hand. “A little music, Professor.” Tony, chewing a cigar, mumbled cues, and Mander read. And, while the reading went on, the elevators were bringing show people to the reception-room, and the girl at the desk was telling them that Tony was busy. That was all they had to be told—they went away. Soon the news would spread up and down Royal Street that the Tony Vaux show was cast. By late afternoon the Everts-Hall Agency would no longer be a big stop. The reading ended. Tony lit a fresh cigar. “Let me hear it again, Frank.” A fine dew of sweat appeared on Mander’s forehead. “A little too much steam,” Tony said when the second reading was finished. “Now, now.” Fat hands spread out in a placating gesture. “Not bad; not bad at all, Frank. But I’m thinking of the other characters. They’re tense with drama. If you give me high comedy I get too much contrast. No belly laughs, just chuckles. Take it from ‘I don’t mean I’m the best in the world—’ Page four.” There was only a hair-line of change in Mander’s reading, but the part shaded into an entirely different part. This was what Wylie meant by a producer touching the strings and producing vibrations. But to give these vibrations, an actor had to be an actor.