Vic Wylie’s face paled. “You got wet yesterday,” he croaked, and then he went into a frenzy. “Miss Robb! Dr. Zinn—twelfth floor. I’m coming right up.” He dragged Joe toward the hall. Twenty minutes later he was back, a wild-eyed lunatic. “Get Curt Lake.” The stenographer made the call. “No answer,” she reported. The producer pounded her desk. “Find him; find him.” Miss Robb “found” him. Curt Lake arrived out of breath. “Laryngitis,” the producer croaked. “The house sold out and the kid gets laryngitis. The part’s got to be dropped. I’ve got to have new script. You see what time it is?” The script-writer whipped out of his coat. “Two o’clock, Vic?” “With the show going on at four-thirty? Can I send them on cold? I want script at noon.” “Noon? Do you think I pick ideas out of the air? You’ll want another script to-night for to-morrow.” “Do I get script or do I get an alibi?” Wylie screamed. Radio’s absolute master, the clock, was goading them with pressure and tension. Come high water or low, storm or calm, sickness or health, at four-thirty the Munson show had to go on. Miss Robb appeared and closed the inner office door. Joe thought with useless regret: “If I hadn’t gone to the train....” Curt Lake was scowling and Wylie was glaring. Suddenly Wylie was halfway across the desk. “How is this, Curt? In the story you’ve had this son soaking stamps off discarded envelopes, pasting them in an album—” The script-writer swung around eagerly. “That’s it, Vic. Last night we left them in a bad way. Almost broke, and the guy that wants the property putting on the pressure. The son’s desperate. He decides to take his stamp collection to a dealer in the city, two hundred miles away. He’s already gone when the script opens—” “A kid without money? How you going to get him there? Pullman?” “Can’t he hike? Can’t he thumb rides?” “Are you nuts? Don’t you know hitch-hiking’s in bad? Do you want the Woman’s Club and the P.T.A. on our necks?” “Do you want a script?” Curt Lake shouted. “Put him on a bus and he’s there to-day and home to-morrow. How long is Joe’s throat going to keep him out? How many miles does a hitch-hiker make? It’s all luck, isn’t it—who picks him up and how far they’re going. We can string it along as far as you need it. If Joe’s throat takes a week he’s away a week. He sends back post cards to his mother. He’s off stage, but we keep the spot on him.” “What’s your curtain?” “Rain. Some swell sound effects. Night and mother alone. She opens the door and listens to the rain. Buckets of rain. You get it, Vic? ‘Where is my wandering boy to-night?’” “I get it,” Wylie snarled. “The last script-writer who used it was shot. He deserved it.” He clawed for his hat, clawed for his coat, clawed for the half-open, bulging brief-case. “It’s corny,” he groaned from the door, “but it’s a script.” Curt Lake stormed out to Miss Robb. “Does he expect me to give him an Orson Welles show in an hour and fifty minutes?”