Now it was Todd’s turn to say, “Oh.”

“Charlene is home to America’s largest whistle factory,” explained Franco. “Pretty much everyone works there.”

“Maybe I should give my reading there,” said Todd.

“Oh no,” said Franco. “It’s much too loud. Wait here,” he added, and walked off, leaving Todd in limbo.

A few minutes later, Franco returned with an elderly woman whose spectacles were bigger than her head, and a teenage boy who could have been used by the concept of reluctance as a mascot.

“This is Mrs. Maxton and Eddie,” he said. Neither Mrs. Maxton nor Eddie spoke or even looked at Todd. “They’re the library staff. They can be your audience.”

Todd thought of his triumph in Chicago, but said nothing. At least this mess had the makings of a decent story, he thought. Then there was the time I played to two people and a dog, he imagined himself saying. Wait: there was no dog!

“Okay, where shall we do it?” he asked.

“My office will be fine,” Franco said.

*  *  *

An hour later, Todd was done. It was hard to say who was less appreciative, Mrs. Maxton, who hadn’t reacted to anything Todd had said or read out loud, or Eddie, who’d spent the entire time comparing things he’d found in his nose with things he’d found in his ear. Mr. Franco, meanwhile, had, in his own words, “used the opportunity to get on with some work,” which meant he’d sat at his desk, going through card indexes and occasionally mm-hm-ing at vaguely appropriate moments.

The nightmare finally over, Todd closed his book and said, “Well, thank you. Normally at this stage I like to open the floor to questions, but—”

“There’s no point,” said Franco. “Eddie only cares about arcade games and Mrs. Maxton is completely deaf.”

“How about you?” said Todd. “Anything you’d like to ask?”

“Not really,” said Franco. “But thanks for coming.”

Todd said his goodbyes as quickly as possible and walked out to the car. He was just putting his bag in the trunk when there was a shout and Franco came running out of the library.

“Mr. Milstead!” he was yelling. “There’s a phone call for you!”

Todd walked into Franco’s office. Franco looked about ready to cry.

“This is my personal telephone,” he said. “I don’t like to give this number out. They told me they’d only call you if it was really important.”

“Must be really important then,” said Todd, and took the receiver from him like a cop might take a revolver from a man who’d lost the nerve to shoot himself.

“Todd?” said Nora’s voice.

“Hi, Nora.”

“How’s it going? Wowing the crowds?”

“Something like that,” said Todd, looking at a large wall calendar with a picture of the whistle factory on it.

“Tell them to hurry up,” said Franco. “My wife might want to call. Or my mother.”