Part 75

"You have been pretty loyal to me, but I am giving you a tip not to put any money down on that 'go' in October."

One day Frohman found Barrymore pacing nervously up and down in front of his office.

"What's the matter, Lionel?" he asked.

"Well," was the reply, "I am very much disturbed about something. I made a promise to 'Kid' McCoy, and I don't know how to keep it. You know I have a line in the play in which the prize-fighter warns his friends not to bet on him in a certain fight in October. The 'Kid,' who has been at the play nearly every night since we opened, now has a real fight on for October, and he is afraid it will give people the idea that it is a 'frame-up.'"

"You mean to say that you want me to change Mr. Thomas's lines?" asked Frohman, seriously.

"I can't ask you to do that," answered Barrymore. "But I promised the 'Kid' to speak to you about it, and I have kept my word."

Frohman thought a moment. Then he said, gravely:

"All right, Lionel, I'll postpone the date of the fight in the play until November, even December, but not a day later."

Frohman was not without his sense of imitation. He was quick to follow up a certain type or mood whether it was in the vogue of an actor or the character of a play. This story will illustrate:

One night early in February, 1895, Frohman sat in his wonted corner at Delmonico's, then on Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street. He had "The Fatal Card," by Chambers and Stephenson, on the boards at Palmer's Theater; he also had A. M. Palmer's Stock Company on the road in Sydney Grundy's play "The New Woman." This naturally gave him a lively interest in Mr. Palmer's productions.

Paul Potter, who was then house dramatist at Palmer's, bustled into the restaurant with the plot of a new novel which had been brought to his attention by the news-stand boy at the Waldorf. Frohman listened to his recital with interest.

"What is the name of the book?" he asked.

"Trilby," replied Potter.

"Well," he continued, "it ought to be called after that conjurer chap, Bengali, or whatever his name is. However, go ahead. Get Lackaye back from 'The District Attorney' company to which Palmer has lent him. Engage young Ditrichstein by all means for one of your Bohemians. Call in Virginia Harned and the rest of the stock company. And there you are."

With uncanny precision he had cast the leading rôles perfectly and on the impulse of the moment.

During the fortnight of the incubation of the play Potter saw Frohman nightly, for they were now fast friends. Frohman was curiously fascinated by "Bengali," as he insisted upon calling Svengali.

"We do it next Monday in Boston," said Potter, "and I count on your coming to see it."

Frohman went to Boston to see the second performance. After the play he and Potter walked silently across the Common to the Thorndyke Hotel. In his room Frohman broke into speech:

"They are roasting it awfully in New York," he began. "Yet Joe Jefferson says it will go around the world." Then he added, "They say you have cut out all the Bohemian stuff."

"Nevertheless," replied Potter, "W. A. Brady has gone to New York to-night to offer Mr. Palmer ten thousand dollars on account for the road rights."

"Well," said Frohman, showing his hand at last, "Jefferson and Brady are right, and if Palmer will let me in I'll go half and half, or, if he prefers, I'll take it all."

At supper after the first performance at the Garden Theater in New York, Frohman advised Sir Herbert Tree to capture the play for London. Henceforth, wherever he traveled, "Trilby" seemed to pursue him.

"I've seen your old 'Bengali,'" he wrote Potter, "in Rome, Vienna, Berlin, everywhere. It haunts me. And, as you cut out the good Bohemian stuff, I'll use it myself at the Empire."

He did so in Clyde Fitch's version of "La Vie de Bohème," which was called "Bohemia."

"How did it go?" Potter wrote him from Switzerland.

"Pretty well," replied Frohman. "Unfortunately we left out 'Bengali.'"

On more than one occasion Frohman produced a play for the mere pleasure of doing it. He put on a certain little dramatic fantasy. It was foredoomed to failure and held the boards only a week.

"Why did you do this play?" asked William H. Crane.