Disappointment made Joe hoarse. “What did Sonny Baker do that I couldn’t have done with the same script?” “Kid,” Wylie said with weary regret, “he can act.” Joe Carlin was stiff and numb with shock. Was Wylie telling him at this late date that he was a flop? After auditioning him for weeks, fighting for him when Mrs. Munson wanted the Dick Davis part for a nephew, giving him the part when the show finally went on the air? Suddenly he was white with anger. Wylie had either fooled him at the beginning or was fooling him now. Either way, he had been betrayed. “You told me I was tops.” The producer’s hands made a weary sign. “I expected you to throw that at me, kid. I had a show coming up; I wanted a Dick Davis; I knew exactly how Dick Davis should sound. I couldn’t find a Dick Davis. Then I heard you auditioning at FKIP. You were my Dick Davis. For that part, your voice made you tops. You were tops until Sonny came along. When Mr. John Public turns on the radio all he gets is voices. Voices must build up the scene, the characters, the atmosphere in his imagination. The show doesn’t have the help of stage settings, lights, costumes, and make-up. You’ve got a million dollar radio voice, but that lets you out. You can’t do much with it. You feel, but you can’t give. It took me weeks to get you to give me one word, ‘Mother,’ the way I wanted it.” Joe’s breath made a sound in his throat. “You’re good, kid, but you’re not good enough. There’ll always be somebody better. That’s the curse of small-time radio. Thousands of kids working in radio all over the country, wild with ambition and dreaming of the pot of gold. They’re good, but not good enough. You’ve got to be better than good. Archie Munn was good; he’s out of radio. Stella’s good; she’s working as a part-time waitress. Lucille Borden was good, and she was selling stockings when she got the breaks. A part came up made to order for her just when she auditioned, or she’d still be selling stockings. Where will you be ten years from now? Exactly where you are to-day. You know small-time radio; do you want that all your life? Your voice gets you a couple of fat parts one season, and next season you get bits. Year after year you make the rounds. By and by John Public gets tired of your voice, or a new voice comes along. Then where are you? Television’s only around the corner. John Public’s going to see the setting, the action, and characters in costume; radio actors will really have to act. What will you do then? If you had dynamite on the ball I’d tell you to stick it out if you starved. You haven’t got it, kid, and there’s no percentage in starving for what you haven’t got. I knew a long time ago you didn’t have the stuff, but you were the best Dick Davis I could get. I told you when Mrs. Munson’s nephew auditioned you’d have been out had he been hot. I’ve never lied to you, kid. If you’d played forty weeks in the _Sue Davis_ show you’d be hooked for life.