Part 20

"I've got a big sensation for Bath."

"What's that?" said the driver.

"We have Miss Cayvan as the leading lady," answered Frohman.

"Miss Who?" asked the driver.

"Miss Cayvan--Miss Georgia Cayvan, leading woman of the Madison Square Theater," answered Frohman, with a great flourish.

"Oh," replied the driver, "you mean our little Georgie. We heard tell that she was acting on the stage, and now I guess some folks will be right smart glad to see her."

Charles was so much interested in Miss Cayvan's appearance in her home town that he came back and joined the company on its arrival and was present at the station when Marc Klaw brought the company in.

Quite a delegation of home people were on hand to meet Miss Cayvan, and she immediately assumed the haughty airs of a prima donna.

Charles was much amused, and decided to "take her down" in an amiable way. So he stepped up to her with great solemnity, removed his hat, and said, after the manner of his old minstrel days:

"Miss Cayvan, we parade at eleven."

Miss Cayvan saw the humor of the situation, took the hint, and got down off her high horse. In the company with Miss Cayvan at that time were Maude Stuart, Charles Wheatleigh, Frank Burbeck, W. H. Crompton, and Mrs. E. L. Davenport, the mother of Fanny Davenport.

* * *

While Charles was impressing his personality and talents at the Madison Square Theater and really finding himself for the first time, Gustave Frohman met Jack Haverly on the street one day. The old magnate said, with emphasis:

"Gus, I've got to have Charles back."

"You can't have him," said Gustave.

"But I must," said Haverly.

"Well, if you pay him one hundred and forty-six dollars a week (one hundred and twenty-five dollars salary and twenty-one dollars for hotel bills) you can have him for a limited time."

"All right," said Haverly.

Charles went back to the Mastodons, where he received a royal welcome. But his heart had become attuned to the real theater--to the hum of its shifting life, to the swift tumult of its tears and laughter. The excitement of the drama, and all the speculation that it involved (and he was a born speculator), were in his blood. He heeded the call and went back to the Madison Square Theater.

But the minstrel field was to claim him again and for the last time. Gustave conceived a plan to send the Callender Minstrels on a spectacular tour across the continent. The nucleus of the old organization, headed by the famous Billy Kersands, was playing in England under the name of Haverly's European Minstrels, Haverly having acquired the company some years before. Charles was sent over to get the pick of the Europeans for the new aggregation. Accompanied by Howard Spear, he sailed on June 7, 1882, on the Wyoming.

He encountered some difficulty in getting the leading members, so with characteristic enterprise he bought the whole company from Haverly and brought it back to the United States, where it was put on the road as Callender's Consolidated Spectacular Colored Minstrels. On all the bills appeared the inscription "Gustave and Charles Frohman, Proprietors." As a matter of fact, Charles had very little to do with the company, although he made a number of its contracts. His financial interest was trivial. Gustave used his name because Charles had been prominently associated with the Mastodons and he had achieved some eminence as a minstrel promoter.

Having launched the Callender aggregation, he went on to Chicago, where Gustave was putting on David Belasco's play "American Born," with the author himself as producer. Charles joined his brother in promoting the enterprise.

Now began the real friendship between Charles Frohman and David Belasco. The chance contact in San Francisco a few years before was now succeeded by a genuine introduction. The men took to each other instinctively and with a profound understanding. They shared the same room and had most of their meals together. Then, as throughout his whole life, Charles consumed large portions of pie (principally apple, lemon meringue, and pumpkin) and drank large quantities of lemonade or sarsaparilla. One day while they were having lunch together Frohman said to Belasco:

"You and I must do things together. I mean to have my own theater in Broadway and you will write the plays for it."

"Very well," replied the ever-ready Belasco. "I will make a contract with you now."

"There will never be need of a contract between us," replied Frohman, who expressed then the conviction that guided him all the rest of his life when he engaged the greatest stars in the world and spent millions on productions without a scrap of paper to show for the negotiation.

Charles worked manfully for "American Born." It was in reality his first intimate connection with a big production. At the outset his ingenuity saved the enterprise from threatened destruction. Harry Petit, a local manager, announced a rival melodrama called "Taken From Life" at McVicker's Theater, and had set his opening date one night before the inaugural of "American Born."

Charles scratched his head and said, "We must beat them to it."