What happens
Maggie Wiley, played by Helen Hayes, is a sharp-tongued young woman in her father's house, and her brother David is her closest companion. When a sleepy Chinese student named John Chan is caught studying in the library, their father proposes a bargain: Chan will receive three hundred pounds to study, in exchange for marrying Maggie. The episode is a Mercury Theatre on the Air presentation from September 24, 1939, adapted for the Campbell Playhouse, with Orson Welles as producer and narrator. It follows the couple's arrangement as Chan's fortunes change, and the story is told through the household's attitudes toward marriage, ambition and affection.
Early twentieth-century Scotland at the Wiley household, later London society and the political life of a Member of Parliament.
Characters: Maggie Wiley, David Wiley, John Chan, Mr. Wiley, Lady Sybil
Listen for: The bargain struck over the table, and Maggie's dry remarks about charm and marriage.
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.