mance he
asked Mr. Field if he could get the rights. Field replied:

"Abbey, French, and Palmer have options on it. If they don't want it you
can have it."

Frohman returned to New York the next day, and even before he had seen
Bronson Howard he looked up his friend Charles Burnham, then manager of
the Star Theater, and asked him to save him some time.

Frohman now went to see Howard, who then lived at Stamford. He expressed
his great desire for the play and then went on to say:

"You are a very great dramatist, Mr. Howard, and I am only a theatrical
manager, but I think I can see where a possible improvement might be
made in the play. For one thing, I think two acts should be merged into
one, and I don't think you have made enough out of Sheridan's ride."

When he had finished, Howard spoke up warmly and said, "Mr. Frohman, you
are right, and I shall be very glad to adopt your suggestions."

The very changes that Howard made in the play were the ones that helped
to make it a great success, as he was afterward frank enough to admit.

Frohman now made a contract for the play and went to Burnham to book
time. Burnham, meanwhile, had been to Boston to see the play, and he
said:

"I saved six weeks for you at the Star for Shenandoah.'"

From the very beginning of his association with "Shenandoah" Charles
Frohman had an instinct that the play would be a success. He now
dedicated himself to its production with characteristic energy.

Scarcely had he signed the contract for "Shenandoah" than occurred one
of the many curious pranks of fate that were associated with this
enterprise. Al Hayman, who had a half-interest in the piece, was
stricken with typhoid fever in Chicago on his way to the coast. He
thought he was going to die, and, not having an extraordinary amount of
confidence in "Shenandoah," he sold half of his half-interest to R. M.
Hooley, who owned theaters bearing his name in Chicago and Brooklyn.

With his usual determination to do things in splendid fashion, Frohman
engaged a magnificent cast. Now came one of the many evidences of the
integrity of his word. Years before, when he had first seen Henry Miller
act in San Francisco he said to him:

"When I get a theater in New York and have a big Broadway production you
will be my leading man."

He had not yet acquired the theater, but he did have the big Broadway
production, so the first male character that he filled was that of
_Colonel West_, and he did