What happens
Chester A. Riley collects his Christmas Club savings at the bank, only to find he has deposited almost nothing. Desperate to fund presents, he persuades his friend Gillis to help him pawn his wife Peg's grandmother's brooch, and the two men steal it from the bedroom while she is out. Riley's shaky story quickly unravels when police return the brooch, and his family learns what he has done. The Life of Riley, the Blue Network and NBC radio comedy starring William Bendix as Riley, was first broadcast on December 23, 1949, with Paula Winslowe as Peg and Alan Reed as Mr. Stevenson.
Riley household and a neighborhood in the days before Christmas, with a bank and a pawnbroker's shop
Characters: Chester A. Riley, Peg Riley, Gillis, Babs, Junior, Digger O'Dell, Sergeant Henderson, Mr. Stevenson
Listen for: Riley's excuses to his wife about the missing brooch, and the family's reaction when the truth comes out
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.