ry 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.

It is the Ba-a-a-ay
Of Love and Bunge-e-e-el--

agreed the kicked-at, white-flannel background.

A shapely octet in silk-and-lisle regimentals, black-astrakhan capes
flung over one shoulder, and black-astrakhan hats as high as a
majordomo's bent eight silk-and-lisle left knees with rhythmic
regularity. Six ponies in yellow skirts