Radio Mirror: The Magazine of Radio Romances (Jan-June 1943)

FOR YEARS, I used to dose myself with a terribletasting medicine whenever I needed a laxative. And what that stuff did to me ! I'd feel the effects for a whole day afterwards. It was just too strong! THEN 1 TRIED another laxative which I thought would be easier on me. But, instead of giving relief, it only stirred me up and left me feeling worse than before. It was just too mild/ I WAS A"DUMB BUNNY" for not having discovered Ex-Lax sooner ! How pleasant it is to take ! You eat a little tablet that tastes just like chocolate — and that's all there is to it ! Ex-Lax works so well, too. It's not too strong, not too mild...i/'j just right! Ex-Lax is effective — but effective in a gentle way! It won't upset you — won't make you feel bad afterwards. No wonder Ex-Lax is called: THE'HAPPY MEDIUM'LAXATIVE — it's not too strong! — it's not too mild! — it's just right! As a precaution, use only as directed. EXLAX 10c and 25c at all drug stores 62 Get relief from the distressing pain and discomfort of simple piles or hemorrhoids — with Unguentine Rectal Cones— made by the makers of famous Unguentine. Millions of these soothing, pain-relieving, antiseptic rectal cones have been sold. Try them— and if you do not get prompt relief, consult your physician. Guarantee: Your druggist will refund your full purchase price if you are not satisfied. UNGUENTINE' RECTAL CONES^mm tnee. v. s. pai. pit. '"iliii"1 ^ By the Makers of 'Unguentine I shook my head. "Why — why — " I improvised, "no, Ralph. No, I wouldn't think of keeping you out tonight. You'd better stay home and nurse that cold." Ordinarily I enjoyed dinner with Ralph, enjoyed our talks together. I couldn't understand why the refusal had leaped so quickly to my lips. But Ralph was pleased by my solicitude. "I guess you're right," he said. "I wish I could get out of here early, but I've got to do the show." shuffled the pack of letters. "We'd better get the script done," I suggested. Ralph nodded. "Okay, go ahead." I picked up the first letter and began to read it aloud. When I had finished, Ralph dictated an answer. That was the way the show went on the air — Ralph reading first the letters and then the answers. WE went on, diminishing the pile of letters, but my mind was only half on my work. Part of it was full of footsteps. . . . "This is the last one," I said at length, picking up the final letter. But I didn't read it. I didn't read it because a door had opened down the hall, and there were footsteps again — familiar footsteps coming closer. And the humming of a song. And a hand on the door of Ralph's office — and the door opening. Had my life depended on it, I could not have turned around. The voice still had laughter in it. The laughter had a new steadiness. "Hi, Ralph. Hello, Little One." Ralph looked up. There was no pleasure in his face. "Hello, Jeff. Come on in." There was a heaviness in my body that made my turning seem to take a thousand years. There he stood, looking just as he had always looked, handsome with the old laughter in his face, handsome still because of a new purpose that was there, too. His uniform was obviously very new. It gave his lean strength a new solidity; his cap was set at a jaunty angle; single gold bars glistened on his shoulders. "Hello, Little One," he said again. That silly name he'd always called me — I, who wasn't particularly little, who wasn't the sort of person at all to be called Little One. My heart was thudding so that I was sure it would give my answer a beating rhythm. "Hello Jeff. You — you look wonderful." For that one moment I could forget all that I held against him and remember only all that I had found dear in him. Ralph cleared his throat impatiently. "So it's Lieutenant Mason now is it? Congratulations, Jeff." Jeff tendered him a mock salute. "Thanks. And congratulations to you, too — you've got yourself a mighty fine secretary." Ralph nodded briefly. "I certainly have. Say, Jeff, sit down somewhere for a minute, will you, while Lila and I finish up the last of this script, and then we can talk. I've had quite a job trying to fill your shoes here." "Sure." Jeff took a straight chair from the corner and swung it around to sit down facing wrong-side-to, his crossed arms on the back of the chair forming a rest for his chin. There was a tiny silence before I realized that Ralph was waiting for me to read the last letter. I picked it up and began in. a voice that sounded strange and far-off. "Dear Mr. Clark: For a while I was engaged to a • boy I loved very much. But he had some bad habits. He drank an awful lot, and some of my friends told me some things about how he acted with other girls. So after a while I gave him his ring back. A little while ago he joined the Army. Yesterday he came home on his first furlough. He seems changed — steadier, sort of, and he doesn't drink anymore. He wants me to be engaged to him again, but I don't know whether I should or not, because my mother says that fellows like that don't really change even if they seem to. Please answer my letter this week as his leave will be over soon, and it may be a long time before I see him again. Mary K." Ralph cleared his throat again and deliberated for a moment before he began to dictate the answer. I could feel Jeff's eyes on my back — -somehow like a hand laid gently between my shoulder blades — and I suddenly felt the warm, purry sensation a kitten must have when it is stroked. After a moment Ralph started his dictating, and my pencil marked the lines of the notebook while I concentrated my mind thankfully on listening to him. "Well, Mary K., I think your mother is right. A man's real nature shows best in his bad habits, and it is very seldom that his real nature changes. Your future is too important to gamble with. Remember, too, that this man may be away for a long time, that you will have none of the normal happiness that is a young girl's right in her engagement. No, Mary K., though there may be a momentary hurt in refusing this young man, I am sure that you will feel, in the long run, that my advice to you is right. Don't take the young man back." Ralph thought again for a moment, then, "That's all," he decided. Now I would have to do it. Now I would have to pick up my notebook and pencils and papers and walk out of the room, walk very close to Jeff, walk by without putting out my hand to touch him as I wanted to. I gathered up my things, took a deep breath, and fled without letting my eyes turn toward him, barely conscious of the fact that he had put out a hand to stay me and let it fall again. AT my desk I rolled paper hurriedly into the typewriter and began to type tonight's script, numbering the letters and putting corresponding numbers on the answers. I forced my fingers to fly to make the rattling of the machine drown out the sound of Jeff's low, musical voice in the next room. I wondered how Jeff would say what he had come to say to me — for surely, he must have come to see me. If he hadn't wanted to see me, he would have stayed away from the station entirely. How would he begin? Would there be the same light, flip phrases I knew so well? Or had he new, serious words to go with the new seriousness I felt in him? But when he did come out it was to stop at my desk only long enough to say, "I've an errand uptown, but I'll be back at the station this afternoon. See you later, Little One." He went out, then, his footsteps