XII Barrie and the English Friendships
T he fortunes of Charles Frohman’s English productions ebbed and flowed; actors and actresses came and went; to him it was all part of a big and fascinating game. What really counted and became permanent were the man’s friendships, often made in the theatrical world of make-believe, but always cemented in the domain of very sincere reality. In England were some of his dearest personal bonds.
They grew out of the fact that Charles had the rare genius of inspiring loyal friendship. He gave much and he got much. Yet, like Stevenson, it was a case of “a few friends, but these without capitulation.”
In England he seemed to be a different human being. The inaccessibility that hedged him about in America vanished. He emerged from his unsocial shell; he gave out interviews; he relaxed and renewed his youth in jaunt and jest. His annual trip abroad, therefore, was like a joyous adventure. It mattered little if he made or lost a fortune each time.
Frohman was happy in London. He liked the soft, gray tones of the somber city. “It’s so restful,” he always said. Even the “bobbie” delighted him. He would watch the stolid policeman from the curb and say, admiringly: “He is wonderful; he raises his hand and all London stops.” He was greatly interested in the traffic regulations.
Although he had elaborate offices, his real London headquarters were in the Savoy Hotel. Here, in the same suite that he had year after year, and where he was known to all employees from manager to page, he literally sat enthroned, for his favorite fashion was to curl up on a settee with his feet doubled under him. More than one visitor who saw him thus ensconced called him a “beaming Buddha.”
From his informal eminence he ruled his world. Around him assembled the Knights of the Dramatic Round Table. Wherever Frohman sat became the unofficial capitol of a large part of the English-speaking stage. In those Savoy rooms there was made much significant theatrical history. To the little American came Barrie, Pinero, Chambers, Jones, Sutro, Maugham, Morton, with their plays; Alexander, Tree, Maude, Hicks, Barker, Bouchier, with their projects.
Like Charles Lamb, Frohman loved to ramble about London. Often he would stop in the midst of his work, hail a taxi, and go for a drive in the green parks. The Zoological Gardens always delighted him. He frequently stopped to watch the animals. The English countryside always lured him, especially the long green hedges, which held a peculiar fascination. He walked considerably in the country and in town, and he took great delight in peering in shop windows.
In London, as in New York, the theater was his life and inspiration. Almost without exception he went to a performance of some kind every evening. At most of the London theaters he was always given the royal box whenever possible. He liked the atmosphere of the British playhouse. He always said it was more like a drawing-room than a place of amusement.
To Charles, London meant J. M. Barrie, and to be with the man who wrote “Peter Pan” was one of his supreme delights. The devotion between these two men of such widely differing temperaments constitutes one of the really great friendships of modern times. Character of an unusual kind, on both sides, was essential to such a communion of interest and affection. Both possessed it to a remarkable degree.
No two people could have been more opposite. Frohman was quick, nervous, impulsive, bubbling with optimism; Barrie was the quiet, canny Scot, reserved, repressed, and elusive. Yet they had two great traits in common—shyness and humor. As Barrie says:
“Because we were the two shyest men in the world, we got on so well and understood each other so perfectly.”
There was another bond between these two men in the fact that each adored his mother. In Charles’s case he was the pride and the joy of the maternal heart; with Barrie the root and inspiration of all his life and work was the revered “Margaret Ogilvy.” He is the only man in all the world who ever wrote a life of his mother.
There was still another and more tangible community of interest between these two remarkable men. Each detested the silk hat. Frohman had never worn one since the Haverly Minstrel days, when he had to don the tile for the daily street parade. Barrie, in all his life, has had only one silk hat. It is of the vintage of the early ‘seventies. The only occasion when he wears the much-detested headgear is at the first rehearsal of the companies that do his plays. Then he attires himself in morning clothes, goes to the theater, nervously holds the hat in his hand while he is introduced to the actors and actresses. Just as Charles used to hide his silk hat as soon as the minstrel parade was over and put on a cap, so does Barrie send the objectionable headgear home as soon as these formalities are over and welcome his more comfortable bowler as an old friend.
Curiously enough, Frohman and Barrie did not drift together at once. When the little Scotchman made his first visit to America in 1896 and “discovered” Maude Adams as the inspired person to act Lady Babbie, he met the man who was to be his great friend in a casual business way only. The negotiations for “The Little Minister” from England were conducted through an agent.
But when Frohman went abroad the following year the kinship between the men started, and continued with increasing intimacy. The men became great pals. They would wander about London, Barrie smoking a short, black pipe, Frohman swinging his stick. On many of these strolls they walked for hours without saying a word to each other. Each had the great gift of silence—the rare sense of understanding.
Barrie and his pipe are inseparable, as the world knows. There is a legend in London theatrical lore that Frohman wanted to drive to Barrie’s flat one night. He was in his usual merry mood, so the instruction he gave was this:
“Drive to the Strand, go down to Adelphi Terrace, and stop at the first smell of pipe smoke.”
Frohman never tired of asking Barrie about “Peter Pan.” It was a curious commentary on the man’s tenacity of interest and purpose that, although he made nearly seven hundred productions in his life, the play of the “Boy Who Would Never Grow Up” tugged most at his heart. Nor did Barrie ever weary of telling him how the play began as a nursery tale for children; how their insistent demand to “tell us more” made it the “longest story in the world”; how, when one pirate had been killed, little Peter (the original of the character, now a soldier in the great war) excitedly said: “One man isn’t enough; let’s kill a lot of them.”
No one will be surprised to know that in connection with “Peter Pan” is one of the most sweetly gracious acts in Frohman’s life. The original of Peter was sick in bed at his home when the play was produced in London. The little lad was heartsick because he could not see it. When Frohman came to London Barrie told him about it.
“If the boy can’t come to the play, we will take the play to the boy,” he said.
Frohman sent his company out to the boy’s home with as many “props” as could be jammed into the sick-room. While the delighted and excited child sat propped up in bed the wonders of the fairy play were unfolded before him. It is probably the only instance where a play was done before a child in his home.
As most people know, Barrie, at his own expense, erected a statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens as his gift to the children of London who so adored his play. It was done as a surprise, for the statue stood revealed one May Day morning, having been set up during the night.
When he planned this statue Barrie mentioned it casually to Frohman, and said nothing more about it. Frohman never visited the park to see it, but when the model was put on exhibition at the Academy he said to Lestocq one day:
“Where is that Peter Pan model?” When he was told he said: “I want to see it, but do I have to look at anything else in the gallery?” On being assured that he did not, he said, “All right.”
Frohman went to the Academy, bolted straight for the sculpture-room, and stood for a quarter of an hour gazing intently at the graceful figure of Peter playing his pipe. Then he walked out again, without stopping to look at any of the lovely things about him. It was characteristic of Frohman to do just the thing he had in mind to do and nothing else.
Frohman and Barrie seldom wrote to each other. When they did it was a mere scrawl that no other human being in the world could read. The only cablegram that Barrie ever sent Frohman was about “What Every Woman Knows.” Hilda Trevelyan played Maggie Wylie. Barrie liked her work so much that he cabled Frohman about it on the opening night. When the actress went down to breakfast the next morning to read what the newspapers said about her she found on her plate a cable from Frohman doubling her salary. It was Frohman’s answer to Barrie.
Frohman’s faith in Barrie was marvelous. It was often said in jest in London that if Barrie had asked Frohman to produce a dramatization of the Telephone Directory he would smile and say with enthusiasm:
“Fine! Who shall we have in the cast?”
One of the great Frohman-Barrie adventures was in Paris. It illustrates so completely the relation between these men that it is worth giving in detail.
Frohman was in Paris, and after much telegraphic insistence persuaded his friend to come over on his first visit to the French capital. Frohman was aglow with anticipation. He wanted to give Barrie the time of his life.
“What would a literary man like to do in Paris?” was the question he asked himself.
In his usual generous way he planned the first night, for Barrie was to arrive in the afternoon. He was then living at the Hôtel Meurice, in the Rue Royale, so he engaged a magnificent suite for his guest. He ordered a sumptuous dinner at the Café de Paris, bought a box at the Théâtre Français, and engaged a smart victoria for the evening.
Barrie was dazed at the splendor of the Meurice suite, but he survived it. When Frohman spoke of the Café de Paris dinner he said he would rather dine quietly at the hotel, so the elaborate meal was given up.
“Now what would you like to do this evening?” asked his host.
“Are there any of those country fairs around here, where they have side shows and you can throw balls at things?” asked Barrie.
Frohman, who had box seats for the most classic of all Continental theaters in his pocket, said:
“Yes, there is one in Neuilly.”
“All right,” said Barrie, “let’s go there.”
“We’ll drive out in a victoria,” meekly suggested Frohman.
“No,” said Barrie, “I think it would be more fun to go on a ’bus.”
With the unused tickets for the Théâtre Français in his waistcoat, and the smart little victoria still waiting in front of the Meurice (for Frohman forgot to order the man home), the two friends started for the country fair, where they spent the whole evening throwing balls at what the French call “Aunt Sally.” It is much like the old-fashioned side-show at an American county fair. A negro pokes his head through a hole in the canvas, and every time the thrower hits the head he gets a knife. When Frohman and Barrie returned to the Meurice that night they had fifty knives between them. The next night they repeated this performance until they had knives enough to start a hardware-store. This was the simple and childlike way that these two men, each a genius in his own way, disported themselves on a holiday.
One more incident will show the amazing accord between Frohman and Barrie. They were constantly playing jokes on each other, like two youngsters. One day they were talking in Frohman’s rooms at the Savoy when a certain actress was announced.
“I would like to know what this woman really thinks of me,” said Barrie. “I have never met her.”
“All right,” said Frohman, “you pretend to be my secretary.”
The woman came up and had a long talk with Frohman, during which she gave her impressions, not very flattering, of British playwrights in general and Barrie in particular. All the while the little Scot sat solemnly at a near-by desk, sorting papers and occasionally handing one to Frohman to sign. When the woman left they nearly exploded with laughter.
One of Frohman’s delights when in England was to go to Barrie’s flat in London, overlooking the Victoria Embankment. He liked this place, first of all, because it was Barrie’s. Then, too, he could sit curled up in the corner on a settee, smoking a fat, black cigar, and look out on the historic Thames. Here he knew he would not have to talk. It was the place of Silence and Understanding. He was in an atmosphere he loved. In the flat above lives John Galsworthy; down-stairs dwells Granville Barker; while just across the street is the domicile of Bernard Shaw, whose windows face Barrie’s.
When Barrie wanted to notify Shaw that Frohman was with him, he would throw bread-crusts against Shaw’s window-panes. In a few moments the sash would fly up and the familiar, grinning, bearded face would pop out. On one of the occasions Shaw yelled across:
“Are you inviting me to a feast, Barrie—are you casting bread upon the troubled waters or is it just Frohman?”
In view of Frohman’s perfect adoration of Barrie—and it amounted to nothing else—it is interesting, as a final glimpse of the relation between these men, to see what the American thought of his friend’s work. In analyzing Barrie’s work once, Frohman said:
“Barrie’s distinctive note is humanity. There is rich human blood in everything he writes. He is a satirist whose arrows are never barbed with vitriol, but with the milk of human kindness; a humanist who never surfeits our senses, but leaves much for our willing imagination; an optimist whose message is as compelling for its reasonableness as it is welcome for its gentleness.”
Through Barrie and “Peter Pan” came another close and devoted friendship in Charles Frohman’s life—the one with Pauline Chase. This American girl had been engaged by one of Frohman’s stage-managers for a small part with Edna May in “The Girl from Up There.” Frohman did not even know her in those days. After she made her great success as the Pink Pajama girl in “Liberty Belles,” at the Madison Square Theater, Frohman engaged her and sent her to England, where, with the exception of one visit to the United States in “Our Mrs. Gibbs,” she has remained ever since.
It was not until she played “Peter Pan” that the Frohman-Chase friendship really began. The way in which Miss Chase came to play the part is interesting. Cissie Loftus, who had been playing Peter, became ill, and Miss Chase, who had been playing one of the twins, and was her understudy, went on to do the more important part at a matinée in Liverpool. Frohman said to her:
“Barrie and I are coming down to see you act. If we like you well enough to play Peter, I will send you back a sheet of paper with a cross mark on it after the play.”
At the end of the first act an usher rapped on Miss Chase’s dressing-room door and handed her the much-desired slip with the cross. Frohman sent word that he could not wait until the end of the play, because he and Barrie were taking a train back to London. In this unusual way Pauline Chase secured the part which helped to endear her to the man who was her friend and sponsor.
Frohman, Barrie, and Miss Chase formed a trio who went about together a great deal and had much in common, aside from the kinship of the theater. It was for Miss Chase that Barrie wrote “Pantaloon,” in which she appeared in conjunction with “Peter Pan,” and which gave her a considerable reputation in England.
When Pauline Chase was confirmed in the little church in Marlow-on-the-Thames, Barrie was her godfather and Miss Ellen Terry was her godmother. Frohman attended this ceremony, and it made a tremendous impression on him. He saw the spectacular side of the ceremony, and the spiritual meaning was not lost on him.
The personal comradeship with Pauline Chase was one of the really beautiful episodes in Frohman’s life. He was genuinely interested in this girl’s career, and in tribute to her confidence in him she made him, in conjunction with Barrie, her father confessor. Here is an episode that is tenderly appealing, and which shows another of the many sides of his character:
Frohman and Barrie were both afraid that Miss Chase would marry without telling them about it, so a compact was made by the three that the two men should be her mentors. There were many applicants for the hand of this lovely American girl. The successful suitor eventually was Alec Drummond, member of a distinguished English family, who went to the front when the war began.
One reason for Miss Chase’s devotion to Charles lay in the fact that the American manager had the body of her mother removed from its resting-place in Washington to the dreamy little churchyard at Marlow-on-the-Thames. It is near Marlow that Miss Chase lived through all the years of the Frohman-Barrie comradeship. Her little cottage at Tree Tops, Farnham Common, five miles from Marlow, was one of the places he loved to visit. On the vine-embowered porch he liked to sit and smoke. On the lawn he indulged in his only exercise, croquet, frequently with Barrie or Captain Scott, who died in the Antarctic, and Haddon Chambers, who lived near by. Often he went with his hostess to feed the chickens.
But wherever he went he carried plays. No matter how late he retired to his room, he read a manuscript before he went to bed. He probably read more plays than any other manager in the world.
Frohman went to Marlow nearly every Saturday in summer. His custom was to alight from the train at Slough, where Miss Chase would meet him in her car and drive him over to Marlow, where they lunched at The Compleat Angler, a charming inn on the river.
Miss Chase sometimes playfully performed the office of manicure for Frohman. Once when she was in Paris he sent her this telegram:
Nails.
Whereupon she wired back:
I am afraid you will have to bite them.
Frohman then sent her the telegram by mail, and under it wrote:
I have.
Of all spots in England, and for that matter in all the world, Charles loved Marlow best. It is typical of the many contrasts in his crowded life that he would seek peace and sanctuary in this drowsy English town that nestled between green hills on the banks of the Thames. He always said that it framed the loveliest memories of his life.
When Miss Chase wrote Frohman that she was to be confirmed in the little church in Marlow, she got the following reply from him, which showed how dear the drowsy place was in his affection:
Dear Pauline:—I am glad about Marlow. That little church is the only one in the world I care for—that one across the river at Marlow. Whenever I see it I want to die and stay there.
And Marlow with its long street and nobody on it is fine.
It was Haddon Chambers who first took Frohman to Marlow. It came about in a natural way, because Maidenhead, which is a very popular resort in England (much frequented by theatrical people) is only a short distance away. One day Chambers, who was with Frohman at Maidenhead, said, “There is a lovely, quiet village called Marlow not far away. Let’s go over there.” So they went.
On this trip occurred one of the many humorous adventures that were always happening when Frohman and Chambers were together. Chambers had the tickets and went on ahead. When he reached the train he found that Frohman was not there. On returning he found his friend held up by the gateman, who demanded a ticket. Quick as a flash Chambers said to him:
“Why do you keep His Grace waiting?”
The gateman immediately became flurried and excited and made apologies. In the mean time Frohman, who took in the situation with his usual quickness, looked solemn and dignified and then passed in like a peer of the realm.
Chambers rented a cottage at Marlow each summer, and one of the things to which Frohman looked forward most eagerly was a visit with him there. Frequent visits to Marlow made the manager known to the whole town. The simplicity of his manner and his keen interest, humor, and sympathy won him many friends. His arrival was always more or less of an event in the little township.
It is a one-street place, with many fascinating old shops. Frohman loved to prowl around, look in the shop windows, and talk to the tradesmen, who came to know and love him and look forward to his advent with the keenest interest. To them he was not the great American theatrical magnate, but a simple, kindly, interested human being who inquired about their babies and who had a big and generous nature.
Frohman once made this remark about the Marlow antique shops: “They’re great. When I buy things the proprietor always tells me whether they are real or only fake stuff. That’s because I’m one of his friends.” It was typical of the man that he was as proud of this friendship as with that of a prince.
On the tramps through Marlow he was often accompanied by Miss Chase and Haddon Chambers. He had three particular friends in the town. One was Muriel Kilby, daughter of the keeper of The Compleat Angler. When Frohman first went to Marlow she was a slip of a child. He watched her grow up with an increasing pride. This great and busy man found time in New York to write her notes full of friendly affection. A few days before the Lusitania went down she received a note from him saying that he was soon to sail, and looked forward with eagerness to his usual stay at Marlow.
Through Miss Kilby Frohman became more intimately a part of the local life of Marlow. She was head of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, which gave an amateur play every year. Frohman became a member, paid the five shillings annual dues, and whenever it was possible he went to their performances. As a matter of fact, the Marlow Dramatic Society has probably the most distinguished non-resident membership in the world, for besides Frohman (and through him) it includes Barrie, Haddon Chambers, Pauline Chase, Marie Lohr, William Gillette, and Marc Klaw. Frohman always took his close American friends to Marlow. One of the prices they paid was membership in the amateur dramatic society.
Like every really great man, Charles Frohman was tremendously simple, as his friendship with W. R. Clark, the Marlow butcher, shows. Clark is a big, ruddy, John Bull sort of man, whose shop is one of the main sights of High Street in the village. Frohman regarded his day at Marlow incomplete without a visit to Clark. One day he met Clark dressed up in his best clothes. He asked Clark where he was going.
“I am going to visit my pigs,” replied the butcher. Frohman thought this a great joke, and never tired of telling it.
Once when Frohman gave out an interview about his friends in Marlow, he sent the clipping to his friend Clark, who wrote him a letter, which contained, among other things:
I can assure you I quite appreciate your kindness in sending the cutting to me. When the township of Marlow has obtained from His Majesty King George the necessary charter to become a county borough, and you offer yourself for the position of Mayor, I will give you my whole-hearted support and influence to secure your election.
Then, too, there was Jones, the Marlow barber, who shaved Frohman for a penny because he was a regular customer.
“Jones is a great man,” Frohman used to say. “He never charges me more than a penny for a shave because I am one of his regular customers. Otherwise it would be twopence. I always give his boy a sixpence, however, but Jones doesn’t know that.”
Indeed, the people of Marlow looked upon Frohman as their very own. He always said that he wanted to be buried in the churchyard by the river. This churchyard had a curious interest for him. He used to wander around in it and struck up quite an acquaintance with the wife of the sexton. She was always depressed because times were so bad and no one was dying. Then an artist died and was buried there, and the old woman cheered up considerably. Frohman used to tell her that the only funeral that he expected to attend was his own.
“And mark you,” he said, for he could never resist a jest, “you must take precious good care of my grave.”
His wish to lie in Marlow was not attained, but in tribute to the love he had for it the memorial that his friends in England have raised to him—a fountain—stands to-day at the head of High Street in the little town where he loved to roam, the place in which he felt, perhaps, more at home than any other spot on earth. Had he made the choice himself he would have preferred this simple, sincere tribute, in the midst of simple, unaffected people who knew him and loved him, to stained glass in the stateliest of cathedrals.
Charles cared absolutely nothing for honors. He was content to hide behind the mask of his activities. He would never even appear before an audience. Almost unwillingly he was the recipient of the greatest compliment ever paid an American theatrical man in England. It happened in this way:
One season when Frohman had lost an unusual amount of money, Sir John Hare gathered together some of his colleagues.
“Frohman has done big things,” Hare said to them. “He loses his money like a gentleman. Let us make him feel that he is not just an American, but one of us.”
A dinner was planned in his honor at the Garrick Club. He is the only American theatrical manager to be elected to membership in this exclusive club. When Frohman was apprised of the dinner project he shrank from it.
“I don’t like that sort of thing,” he said. “Besides, I can’t make a speech.”
“But you won’t have to make a speech,” said Sir Arthur Pinero, who headed the committee.
Frohman tried in every possible way to evade this dinner. Finally he accepted on the condition that when the time came for him to respond he was merely to get up, bow his acknowledgment, and say, “Thank you.” This he managed to do.
At this dinner, over which Sir John Hare presided, Frohman was presented with a massive silver cigarette-box, on which was engraved the facsimile signatures of every one present. These signatures comprise the “Who’s Who” of the British theater. These princes of the drama were proud and glad to call themselves “A few of his friends,” as the inscription on the box read.
The signers were, among others, Sir Arthur Pinero, Sir Charles Wyndham, Sir John Hare, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Sir James M. Barrie, Alfred Sutro, Cyril Maude, H. B. Irving, Lawrence Irving, Louis N. Parker, Anthony Hope, A. E. W. Mason, Seymour Hicks, Robert Marshall, W. Comyns Carr, Weedon Grossmith, Gerald Du Maurier, Eric Lewis, Dion Boucicault, A. E. Matthews, Arthur Bouchier, Cosmo Hamilton, Allan Aynesworth, R. C. Carton, Sam Sothern, and C. Aubrey Smith.
Nothing gave Charles more satisfaction in England perhaps than his encouragement of the British playwright. He inherited Pinero from his brother Daniel, and remained his steadfast friend and producer until his death. Pinero would not think of submitting a play to any other American manager without giving Frohman the first call. In all the years of their relations, during which Charles paid Pinero a large fortune, there was not a sign of contract between them.
Frohman practically made Somerset Maugham in America. His first association with this gifted young Englishman was typical of the man’s method of doing business. Maugham had written a play called “Mrs. Dot,” in which Marie Tempest was to appear. Frederick Harrison, of the Haymarket Theater, had an option on it, which had just expired. Another manager wanted the play. Frohman heard of it, and asked to be allowed to read it. Maugham then said:
“It must be decided to-night.”
It was then dinner-time.
“Give me three hours,” said Frohman.
At one o’clock in the morning he called up Maugham at his house and accepted the play, which was probably the quickest reading and acceptance on record in England.
Another experience with Maugham shows how Frohman really inspired plays.
He was riding on the train with the playwright when he suddenly said to him:
“I want a new play from you.”
“All right,” said Maugham.
Frohman thought a moment, and suddenly flashed out:
“Why not rewrite ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ with a new background?”
“All right,” said Maugham.
The result was Maugham’s play “The Land of Promise,” which was really built around Frohman’s idea.
Frohman produced all of Maugham’s plays in America, and most of them were great successes. He also did the great majority of them in England. Maugham waxed so prosperous that he was able to buy a charming old residence in Chesterfield Street which he remodeled in elaborate fashion. On its completion his first dinner guest was Charles Frohman. When Maugham sent him the invitation it read:
Will you come and see the house that Frohman built?
In the same way he developed men like Michael Morton. He would see a French farce in the Paris theaters, and, although he could not understand a word of French, he got the spirit and the meaning through its action. He would buy the play, go to London with the manuscript, and get Morton or Paul Potter to adapt it for American consumption.
Life in London to Charles Frohman was one series of adventures. Like Harun-al-Rashid in the Arabian Nights, he delighted to wander about, often with Barrie, sometimes with Lestocq, seeking out strange and picturesque places in which to eat.
These adventures began in his earliest days in England. Here is a characteristic experience:
One day Madeline Lucette Ryley, the playwright, came to see him in his office in Henrietta Street. A battered old man was hanging around the door.
“Did you see that man outside?” asked Frohman.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Ryley. “Is he the bailiff?”
“Oh no,” said Frohman, “he is a Maidenhead cabby.” This is the story of how he came there.
The day before Frohman had been down to Maidenhead alone for luncheon. At the station he hailed a cabby who was driving a battered old fly.
“Where to, Governor?” asked the man.
“Number 5 Henrietta Street,” said Frohman.
“No such place in Maidenhead,” said the driver.
“Oh, I mean the place opposite Covent Garden in London.”
The old cabby wasn’t a bit flustered, but he said, “I will have to get a new horse.”
He changed horses and they made the long way to London, arriving there considerably after nightfall. When Frohman asked for his bill the old man said, with some hesitation:
“I’m afraid it will cost you five pounds.”
“That’s all right,” said Frohman, and paid the bill.
To his great surprise, the cabby showed up next morning, saying: “I like London. I think I’ll stay here.” It was with the greatest difficulty that Frohman got rid of him. When the cabby finally started to go he said:
“Well, Governor, if you want to go back to Maidenhead I’ll do it for half-price.”
A short time after this incident Frohman, whose purse was none too full then, asked some people to dine with him at the Hotel Cecil. By some mistake he and his party were shown into a room that had been arranged for a very elaborate dinner. Before he realized it the waiter began to serve the meal. He soon knew that it was not the menu he had ordered, and was costing twenty times more. But he was game and stuck to it. It was midwinter, and when the fresh peaches came on he said to the woman on his right:
“This will break me, I know, but we might as well have a good time.”
Frohman almost invariably took one of his American friends to England with him. It was usually Charles Dillingham, Paul Potter, or William Gillette.
On one of Gillette’s many trips with him Frohman got up an elaborate supper for Mark Twain at the Savoy and invited a brilliant group of celebrities, including all three of the Irvings, Beerbohm Tree, Chauncey M. Depew, Sir Charles Wyndham, Haddon Chambers, Nat Goodwin, and Arthur Bouchier. In his inconspicuous way, however, he made it appear that Gillette was giving the supper.
Midnight arrived, and Twain had not shown up. It was before the days of taxis, so Dillingham was sent after him in a hansom. After going to the wrong address, he finally located the humorist in Chelsea. He found Mark Twain sitting in his dressing-gown, smoking a Pittsburg stogie and reading a book.
“Did you forget all about the supper?” asked Dillingham.
“No,” was the drawling reply, “but I didn’t know where the blamed thing was. I had a notion that some one of you would come for me.”
Mark Twain and Frohman were great friends. They were often together in London. Their favorite diversion was to play “hearts.”
The great humorist once drew a picture of Charles, and under it wrote:
N. B. I cannot make a good mouth. Therefore leave it out. There is enough without it, anyway. Done with the best ink.
M. T.
Underneath this inscription he wrote:
To Charles Frohman, Master of Hearts.
Few things in England pleased Frohman more than to play a joke on Gillette, for the author of “Secret Service,” like his great friend, relaxed when he was on the other side. When Frohman produced “Sue” in England an amusing incident happened.
Frohman had brought over Annie Russell and Ida Conquest for his piece. The actresses were very much excited before the first night, and went without dinner. After the play they were very hungry. On going to the Savoy they encountered the English prohibition against serving women at night when unaccompanied by men. After trying at several places they went to their lodging in Langham Place almost famished.
In desperation they telephoned to Dillingham, who was playing “hearts” at the Savoy with Frohman and Gillette. He hurriedly got some food together in a basket, and with his two friends drove to where the young women were staying. The house was dark; fruitless pulls at the door-bell showed that it was broken. It was impossible to raise any one.
Dillingham knew that the actresses were occupying rooms on the second floor front. He had five large English copper pennies in his pocket, and so he started to throw them up to the window to attract their attention. He threw four, and each fell short.
“This is the last copper,” he said to Frohman. “If we can’t reach the girls with this they will have to go hungry.”
Whereupon Frohman said: “Let Gillette throw it. He can make a penny go further than any man in the world.”
Such was Charles Frohman’s English life. It was joyous, almost rollicking, and pervaded with the spirit of adventure. Yet behind all the humor was something deep, searching, and significant, because in England, as in America, this man was a vital and constructive force, and where he went, whether in laughter or in seriousness, he left his impress.