"But hold up your right hand. Don't you tell nobody I'm pushing you for next season's feature--that's our little secret--between you and me and Al." "I was gettin' thirty dollars." "Don't you worry about that, Doll-Doll. You come back here to-morrow at ten. I wanna show Al how the Red Widow we've been lookin' for dropped right into my hands. He can't squeal to me no more about _types_." "I--I'm going now, Mr. Myers--to-morrow, then, at ten--" "Where you goin', Doll?" "Home. I guess I've lost my friend now." "Wait; I'm going your way." "You don't even know which way I'm goin'." "Sure I do. I'll drop you there in my car." "Oh--I--I want--to walk--I do." "None of that, sister. I'm treatin' you white, and you gotta do the same by me. I won't bite you, you little scare-cat! I'm goin' to make things happen to you that'll make you wake up every day pinchin' yourself." "My little sister, Mr. Myers, has got me beat on looks." "But you gotta treat me white, sister. We can talk business in the car, but you gotta have confidence in me. I won't bite--you big little girl, you." "I don't want--to go--that way, Mr. Myers--I gotta go some place first." "Comin', sister?" "I--I--" "Comin'?" "Yes." * * * * * On its hundredth night "The Red Widow," playing capacity houses at the Gotham Theater, presented each lady in the audience a "handsome souvenir" of Red Widow perfume attractively nestled in a red-satin box with a color picture of Della Delaney on the label. To the pretty whifflings and "ah's!" of every feminine nose present, to the over-a-million-copies-sold waltz-theme that was puckering the mouth of every newsboy in New York, to the rustly settling back into chairs, furs, and standing-room-only attitudes against Corinthian pillars, the hundredth-night, second-act curtain rose on an audience with an additional sense unexpectedly gratified and the souvenir-loving soul of every woman present sniffing its appreciation. Comedy is a classic prodigal who has wandered far. Comus has discarded his mantle and donned a red nose, a split-up-the-back waistcoat, and a pair of clap-sticks. Harlequin and Cap-and-Bells have doffed the sock and many colors for the sixty-dollar-a-week role of million-dollar pickle-magnate pursuing a forty-dollar juvenile, who, in turn, is pursuing the two-hundred-dollar-a-week Red Widow from Act One--summer hotel at Manhattan Beach to Act Two--tropical isle off the Bay of Bungel. For the hundredth time the opening act of "The Red Widow"--a ghoul at the grave of a hundred musical comedies--sang to its background of white-flannel chorus-men, drop-curtain of too-blue ocean and jungle of cotton-back palms. A painted ship idled on a painted ocean. Trees reared their tropical leaves into a visible drop-net. It is the Bay--it is the Bay--it is the Ba-a-ay Of Love and Bunge-e-e-e-l-- announced the two front rows, kicking backward three times.