He got down on his knees before the radio.
“It’s not fair to leave me all up in the air like this,” he said plaintively. “You really ought to tell me more about—”
“Rupert!” the familiar voice rang through the room like a Mongol battle cry.
Mr. Rewbarb started guiltily, and turned to face the indignant figure of his wife.
Mrs. Jennifer Rewbarb was a muscular woman, with a torso as impressive as the prow of a battleship, and a stern, square face. Mr. Rewbarb scrambled to his knees.
“Who,” Mrs. Rewbarb demanded stridently, “were you talking to, Rupert Rewbarb?”
Honestly was Mr. Rewbarb’s cardinal virtue. It didn’t really occur to him that he would save a great amount of trouble by simply evading the question. Anyway that wouldn’t have been honest, would it?
“I was talking to the radio,” he said simply. “We were having quite a conversation.”
“We?” Mrs. Rewbarb echoed the word. “Who else was here?” she asked ominously.
“Nobody,” Mr. Rewbarb said. “The radio was talking to me and I was talking to the radio.”
Mrs. Rewbarb sniffed derisively. “You’re losing your wits,” she said, in a tone of voice which indicated that it was a small loss. “I want no more of this nonsense,” she went on imperturbably. “You have a day off tomorrow and I want you to help me with the house work. The girls will be in in the afternoon for bridge and we’re entertaining Mr. Glick, your employer, tomorrow evening for supper. I think it’s about time I ask for another raise for you. And one word of caution. Do not speak tomorrow evening unless you look to me for approval. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my dear,” Mr. Rewbarb sighed meekly.
“Very good. Now no more of this nonsense about talking to the radio. I thought I had you broken of your silly habits. I see you still need a firm hand now and then. I have been altogether too lenient.”
Having thus concluded her sermon for the day, Mrs. Rewbarb strode majestically from the room.
Mr. Rewbarb remained where he had been standing a strange puzzled look on his face.
“Losing my wits,” he muttered, “that’s what she said.”
He glanced down indecisively at the radio and then he snapped his fingers. “Maybe I’d better find out,” he muttered.
The tall, white-haired neuro-psychiatrist was very kind and understanding. He clucked his tongue several times after Mr. Rewbarb had finished speaking, and then he ran a lean hand through his hair.
“So the radio talked back to you, did it?” he asked pleasantly. “Not an entirely unusual phenomenon at that.” His voice was as soothing as syrup and Mr. Rewbarb felt his fears smoothing away under the gentle effects of this melifluous voice. He was thankful that he had decided to consult a psychiatrist that same evening. Jennifer probably wondered where he had gone, and would probably raise cain when he got back but that was all right.
“So it’s nothing to worry about, then?” he asked hopefully.
The psychiatrist looked Mr. Rewbarb over carefully.
“No,” he said, “it won’t help you to be worrying about it. But don’t talk out loud to the radio. Just think the things you’d like to say. Then when the radio talks back to you just ignore it.”
Mr. Rewbarb was not quite as foolish as he looked.
“You don’t believe me,” he said excitedly. “I can tell. You think this is all an hallucination or something. Well I tell you it isn’t. It actually happened just like I told you.”
Mr. Rewbarb stood up and took his hat.
“Good day,” he said with stiff dignity.
The Doctor shook his head as the door slammed behind Mr, Rewbarb.
“Memo this,” he said to his secretary. “Get in touch with Mrs. Jennifer Rewbarb at earliest convenience. In regards husband...”
After his unsatisfactory visit to the Doctor, Mr. Rewbarb returned home and went to bed. The radio had nothing more to say to him, but his wife had plenty to say. Mr. Rewbarb lay in bed still stinging under the lash of her caustic tongue. But even more upsetting than this was the predicament he found himself in, in regard to his animated or wilful radio. Till the wee small hours Mr. Rewbarb writhed and tossed, his mind a seething cauldron of hopes and fears and misery. Then finally exhausted by his frantic worryings, he dropped into a fitful sleep.
The next morning Mr. Rewbarb dusted the floors and ran the vacuum cleaner over the rugs until almost noon. Then his wife gave him instructions for the day.
“The girls will be here any minute,” she said firmly, “and I want you to come in and say hello to them when they arrive. Stay only a minute or so and then leave, change your trousers and carry out the ashes. And by the way, Mr. Click phoned earlier this morning to say he’d drop by this afternoon to see you in regard to some office matters. You haven’t forgotten that he’s coming to dinner tonight, have you?”
“No,” Mr. Rewbarb said dismally. “I haven’t forgotten.”
The shrill ring of the front door bell interrupted them.
“It must be the girls,” Mrs. Rewbarb said as she left the room to answer the door.
Mr. Rewbarb left to himself in the dining room contemplated his existence mournfully. What was he? A lackey, a housemaid, a subservient wretch bossed about by even the radio!
These gloomy musings continued for a half hour or so until Mr. Rewbarb heard the shrill cackles that indicated the progress of the bridge game.
He rose then, and with the bearing of an early Christian martyr entering a lion-filled arena, he walked in to greet the “girls.”
The “girls” were, for the most part, heavy-duty matrons, cast in the same mold as Mrs. Rewbarb. They played bridge in a savage silence, punctuated occasionally by shrill cacophonic cries of triumph or venomous whispers of dissatisfaction. Their devotion to the game and its attendant gossip was almost passionate.
It was into this tense nervous atmosphere that Mr. Rewbarb intruded. Several of the women bestowed polite smiles upon him and turned back to their cards with feverish absorption.
Mr. Rewbarb had composed a rather clever quip to herald his entrance, but as he opened his mouth to deliver the little gem, an angry masculine voice said:
“That sloppy looking creature in the flowered chiffon dress is a damned cheat! Furthermore, she is a vicious gossip, and I heartily wish she would clear out of here.”
A loud, incredulous silence settled over the room. With sickening certainty, Mr. Rewbarb knew the origin of that devastating voice. It was the malignant, nasty voice of the radio. Mr. Rewbarb’s mouth was still open, and he noticed for the first time, that the angry glares of the assembled women were directed straight at him.
The inference was obvious. They thought he had uttered the grossly damaging words.
He essayed a weak grin.
“If you think...” he began.
But the radio voice continued, “that you’re the only cheat in the crowd, you’re badly mistaken. In fact I’ve watched all of you cheating and lying and gossiping until I’m sick of it. I should have had you all thrown out long ago.”
A murmur like the angry noise of disturbed bees was growing in the room. The women glared in undisguised dismay and anger from Jennifer Rewbarb to her sputtering husband. The woman in the flowered chiffon seemed to swell twice her normal size. Her moon-like face was stained an angry, violent crimson.
“Reeeealy Mrs. Rewbarb,” she thundered impressively, “this is more than I can tolerate. For your husband to imply, to think of implying, that I would cheat! It’s monstrous. The very thought, the mere idea of my cheating is incredible.”
“Not too incredible,” her opponent said pointedly. “Considering your very unusual luck this afternoon, dearie.”