"Take off your hat, big little girl, and if you're good to me I'll tell you something. If I hadn't taken a fancy to you I wouldn't tell you, neither." She lifted the heavy brim with both hands and stood in the bar of sunlight. "Gad!" he cried--"Gad!" and jerked open a drawer and threw the big bulk of a typewritten manuscript on the desk before him. "Read that; read that, sister!" His heavy spatulate finger underlined the caption. "'The--Red--Widow,' 'The Red Widow,' by Al Wilson." He rose and jerked her by her two wrists so that she flounced toward him, her hair awry and the breath jumping out of her bosom. "That's _you_, sister--the Red Widow!" "The Red--Widow?" "You're goin' out in a road chorus next week and get broke in. At the end of a season I'm goin' to feature you in the biggest show that ever I had up my sleeve." She regarded him with glazed eyes of one dazed, and backed away from him. "Me!" "You--the Red Widow, sister! You know what a Hy Myers production means, don't you? You know what an Al Wilson show is, don't you? Add them two. I'll make you make that show or bust. Stand off there and lemme look at you again--there--so!" "Quit!" She sprang back from his touch and raised her hand with the glove dangling in the attitude of a horseman cracking his whip. "You--you quit!" Like Dryope changed into a tree, with the woodiness creeping up her limbs and the glove in her passive hand, she stood with her arm flung upward. "You quit!" "Dear child, you mustn't--" "I--I'm goin'--lemme go!" "Aw, come now, sister; don't get frisky--I didn't mean to make you sore. Gee! Ain't you a touchy little devil?" "I'm goin'." "If that's your number, all righty--but you're just kiddin'--you ain't goin' to be too independent in one of the worst seasons in the business." She moved toward the door with her hand outstretched to the knob. "You better think twice, sister--but don't lemme keep you--there's other Red Widows as good and better'n you beatin' like an army at my door this minute. But don't lemme keep you." "Will--will you lemme alone?" "Sure I will, if it'll make you feel any better--you cold little queen, you. Nervous as a unbroke colt, ain't you? Sit down there and watch." He touched a buzzer, and a uniformed boy sprang through the door to his elbow. "Write Al Wilson to meet me here to-morrow at ten." "Yes, sir." The uniform flashed out. She moved around him cautiously, not taking her eyes from his face. "Have I--have I got a job?" "Sure you have. I'll send you out to Frisco in a chorus that'll limber you up, all right, but I won't let you stay long. I won't let a little queen like you run away for long." "Frisco--me--gee!" "Gad! maybe I won't neither. How would you like to play right close to home over in Brooklyn? I've got a chorus over there that'll take the stiffness out of you. I don't want to let a great, big, beautiful doll like you too far away." "Frisco--I like Frisco."