Part 95

"Just as soon as I talked to Frohman about my own dramatic projects," he says, "he would fall asleep. So, when the night grew long and the travel stories failed, and even 'Alexander's Rag-Time Band' grew stale, I would start off by saying: 'I have a new play in mind. This is the way the plot goes.' Then Frohman's eyes would close; before long he would be asleep, and I crept noiselessly out."

Occasionally during those long conflicts with pain Frohman saw through the glass darkly. His intense and constant suffering, for the time, put iron into his well-nigh indomitable soul.

"I'm all in," he would say to Potter. "The luck is against me. The star system has killed my judgment. I no longer know a good play from a bad. The sooner they 'scrap' me the better."

His thin fingers tapped on the bedspread, and, like Colonel Newcome, he awaited the Schoolmaster's final call.

"You and I," he would continue, "have seen our period out. What comes next on the American stage? Cheap prices, I suppose. Best seats everywhere for a dollar, or even fifty cents; with musical shows alone excepted. Authors' royalties cut to ribbons; actors' salaries pared to nothing. Popular drama, bloody, murderous, ousting drawing-room comedy. Crook plays, shop-girl plays, slangy American farces, nude women invading the auditorium as in Paris."

"And then?" asked Potter.

"Chaos," said he. "Fortunately you and I won't live to see it. Turn on the phonograph and let 'Alexander's Rag-time Band' cheer us up."

He got well enough to walk around with a stick, and with movement came a return of the old enthusiasm. A man of less indomitable will would have succumbed and become a permanent invalid. Not so with Frohman. He even got humor out of his misfortune, because he called his cane his "wife." He became a familiar sight on that part of Broadway between the Knickerbocker Hotel and the Empire Theater as he walked to and fro. It was about all the walking he could do.

He kept on producing plays, and despite the physical hardships under which he labored he attended and conducted rehearsals. With the pain settling in him more and more, he believed himself incurable. Yet less than four people knew that he felt that the old titanic power was gone, never to return.

The great war, on whose stupendous altar he was to be an innocent victim, affected him strangely. The horror, the tragedy, the wantonness of it all touched him mightily. Indeed, it seemed to be an obsession with him, and he talked about it constantly, unmindful of the fact that the cruel destiny that was shaping its bloody course had also marked him for death.

Early during the war he saw some verses that made a deep impression on him. They were called "In the Ambulance," and related to the experience of a wounded soldier. He learned them by heart, and he never tired of repeating them. They ran like this:

"Two rows of cabbages; Two of curly greens; Two rows of early peas; Two of kidney-beans."

That's what he's muttering, Making such a song, Keeping all the chaps awake The whole night long.

Both his legs are shot away, And his head is light, So he keeps on muttering All the blessed night:

"Two rows of cabbages; Two of curly greens; Two rows of early peas, And two of kidney-beans."

It was Frohman's intense feeling about the war, that led him to produce "The Hyphen." Its rejection by the public hurt him unspeakably. Yet he regarded the fate of the play as just one more phase of the big game of life. He smiled and went his way.

The rheumatism still oppressed him, but he turned his face resolutely toward the future. War or peace, pain or relief, he was not to be deprived of his annual trip to England. He was involved in some litigation that required his presence in London. Besides, the city by the Thames called to him, and behind this call was the appeal of old and loved associations. With all his wonted enthusiasm he wrote to his friends at Marlow telling them that he was coming over and that he would soon be in their midst.

Frohman now made ready for this trip. When he announced that he was going on the Lusitania his friends and associates made vigorous protest, which he derided with a smile. Thus, in the approach to death, just as in the path to great success, opposition only made him all the more decided. With regard to his sailing on the Lusitania, this tenacity of purpose was his doom.

Whether he had a premonition or not, the fact remains that he said and did things during the days before he sailed which uncannily suggested that the end was not unexpected. For one thing, he dictated his whole program for the next season before he started. It was something that he had never done before.

When Marie Doro came to his office to say good-by he pulled out a little red pocket note-book in which he jotted down many things and suddenly said:

"Queer, but the little book is full. There is no room for anything else."

Just as he was warned not to produce "The Hyphen," so was he now cautioned by anonymous correspondents (and even by mysterious telephone messages) not to take the Lusitania. But all this merely tightened his purpose.

He met the danger with his usual jest. On the day before he sailed he went up to bid his old friend and colleague, Al Hayman, good-by. Hayman, like all his associates, warned him not to go on the Lusitania.

"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Frohman.

"Yes, I do," replied Hayman.

"Well, I am going, anyhow," was the answer.

After he had shaken hands he stopped at the door and said, smilingly:

"Well, Al, if you want to write to me just address the letter care of the German Submarine U 4."