What happens
Gildersleeve is up unusually early one morning and behaves oddly around his household. Floyd the barber and the judge pick up a rumor that the water commissioner has been making passes at his secretary, Bessie, after a candy gift left for a temporary replacement. Gildersleeve tells his household staff and colleagues the story is false, but he worries it sounds believable and considers firing Bessie. The episode is part of the long-running radio comedy The Great Gildersleeve, first broadcast on NBC on February 26, 1947, starring Harold Peary.
Summerfield, the small town where Gildersleeve serves as water commissioner, including his home, the barbershop, his city hall office, and the streets of town.
Characters: Gildersleeve, Bertie, Marjorie, Leroy, Floyd, Bessie, Judge Horace, Mr. Clement
Listen for: Gildersleeve's fumbling attempts to explain the candy gift, and his shifting decisions about whether to fire Bessie.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.