strenuous and varied
endeavor, sat at a desk in a big room on the second floor, dreaming and
planning great things that were soon to be realized.

Although staggering under a burden of debt that would have discouraged
most people, Frohman, with his optimistic philosophy, felt that the hour
had come at last when the tide would turn. And it did. At this time his
financial complications were at their worst. Some of them dated back to
the disastrous Wallack Company tour; others resulted from his impulsive
generosity in indorsing his friends' notes. He was so involved that he
could not do business under his own name, and for a period the firm went
on as Al Hayman & Company.

[Illustration: _WILLIAM GILLETTE_]

One of the very first enterprises in the new offices cemented the
friendship of Charles Frohman and William Gillette. While at the Madison
Square Theater he had booked Gillette's plays, "The Professor" and "The
Private Secretary." Frohman, with Al Hayman as partner, induced Gillette
to make a dramatization of Rider Haggard's "She," which was put on at
Niblo's Garden in New York with considerable success. Wilton Lackaye and
Loie Fuller were in the cast.

Gillette now tried his hand at a war play called "Held by the Enemy,"
which Frohman booked on the road. Frohman was strangely interested in
"Held by the Enemy." It had all the thrill and tumult of war and it lent
itself to more or less spectacular production. When the road tour ended,
Frohman, on his own hook, took the piece and the company, which was
headed by Gillette, for an engagement at the Baldwin Theater in San
Francisco. He transported all the original scenery, which included,
among other things, some massive wooden cannon.

The San Francisco critics, however, slated the piece unmercifully. The
morning after the opening Gillette stood in the lobby of the Palace
Hotel with the newspapers in his hand and feeling very disconsolate. Up
bustled Frohman in his usual cheery fashion.

"Look what the critics have done to us," said Gillette, gloomily.

"But we've got all the best of it," replied Frohman, with animation.

"How's that?" asked Gillette, somewhat puzzled.

"_They've_ got to stay here."

This little episode shows the buoyant way in which Frohman always met
misfortune. His irresistible humor was the oil that he invariably spread
upon the troubled waters of discord and discouragement.

It was while selecting one of the casts of "Held by the Enemy," w