Aurora Dawn by Herman Wouk Read Free Book Online

recommending him as his successor if he brought it off. There was more than
     the single program at stake. Talmadge Marquis had four of his six soap programs with the rival USBS, and only two relatively
     small daytime shows with RBC: “Meet Mother Murphy,” wherein homespun Irish charm furthered the cause of Aurora Dawn Energized
     Soap Beads; and “Doctor Morris’s Secret,” a serial which had successfully advocated the virtue of Aurora Dawn Dubl-Bubl Shampoo
     for four years without bringing its listeners one jot closer to the nature of the kindly old horse doctor’s secret. Now, Marquis
     had originally begun his radio advertising with RBC and had been won over to producing his major shows on the rival chain
     only by skulduggery, including relentless play on his weakness for tall, thin brunettes; there therefore lurked in the bosoms
     of Van Wirt and his superiors at RBC an unflagging desire to win him back, like the burning Irredentism of a Balkan state
     bereft of a border province.
    Their great chance was at hand with the Father Stanfield incident. Marquis had originally ordered USBS to get the Faithful
     Shepherd for him, and that unhappy corporation had met with a flat refusal from the preacher to appear under commercial sponsorship.
     His reply to their clumsy representative–“The Saviour ain’t for sale, Mister, not since Judas’s little transaction, he ain’t”–had
     circulated through radio circles with the speed of a sexy joke. Striking while the iron was hot, the executive director of
     RBC had ordered Van Wirt to devise a clever scheme which would bring the Fold of the Faithful Shepherd into the broader fold
     of Republic Broadcasting. (He had been vague on the details of the cleverness.) Van Wirt, equally vague, delegated the task
     to Andrew, giving him the alternative of a leap close to the top of RBC’s executive hierarchy, in the thin, intoxicating ozone
     of twenty-five thousand a year, or possible ignominy and dismissal. Andrew had a plan, perfect as plans could be; its chances
     depended entirely on the correctness of his estimate of the character of Father Stanfield.
    His heart quickening, Andrew mounted the steps of the broad farmhouse known as the Old House, and knocked loudly at the door.
     It was opened by a thin, meek-looking girl, innocent of the benefits of make-up and wearing a cheap gray cotton dress and
     a clean apron, who said, as Andrew stood blinking at the sudden rush of light, “You the young man from New York? Father expecting
     you,” and motioned him to enter. She took the bag awkwardly from his hand, ignoring his murmured protest, while a hearty voice
     boomed from within: “That the young feller, Esther? Bring him in, bring him in!” Andrew barely caught a glimpse of an old-fashioned
     hallway with a full-length mirror near the door and faded green flowery paper on the walls, before he found himself in the
     dining room. Ablaze with the light from a glass chandelier suspended over a long, laden table, a-clatter with the noise of
     a dinner in full swing, the room seemed overflowing with food, people, and good humor. At the far end of the table sat a broad
     man with fair, straight hair and protruding ears, dressed in black, who stood up as Andy entered and strode to him, waving
     huge meaty hands in greeting. Andy was almost six feet tall, but Father Stanfield loomed over and around him; he was built
     on a massive scale and the mass was working weight, as Andrew knew the moment he shook hands.
    “Saturday night’s a good night to come to the Old House, son,” cried the preacher, leading him by the hand to a vacant chair
     beside his own at the head of the table. “Esther, bring some hot soup. That food on trains don’t do a man no good. We don’t
     eat too bad here, son.” With this he pushed Andrew into the chair and sat down in his own, picking up a fork and spearing
     a wide slab of fried steak from a metal platter as he did so. A plate of thick soup