omedy hits of the play, but in order to achieve it she worked for days
and days to bring about the desired effect. The result of all this
painstaking preparation was a brilliant performance. When the curtain
went down on that memorable night at Palmer's Theater the general
impression was:

"Maude Adams will be the next Frohman star."

The morning after the opening Frohman went to John Drew and said: "Well,
John, you don't need me any more now. You're made."

"No, Charles; I shall need you always," was the reply.

Out of this engagement came the long and intimate friendship between
Drew and Frohman. The first contract, signed and sealed on that
precarious day when Frohman was seeing the vision of the modern star
system, was the last formal bond between them. Though their negotiations
involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in the years that passed,
there was never another scrap of paper between them.

Seldom in the history of the American theater has another event been so
productive of far-reaching consequence as "The Masked Ball." It brought
Clyde Fitch into contact with the man who was to be his real sponsor; it
made John Drew a star; it carried Maude Adams to the frontiers of the
stellar realm; it gave Charles Frohman a whole new and distinguished
place in the theater.

Frohman was quick to follow up this success. With Drew he had made his
first real bid for what was known in those days as "the carriage
trade"--that is, the patronage of the socially elect. He hastened to
clinch this with another stunning production at Palmer's. It was Bronson
Howard's play, "Aristocracy."

The play, produced on November 14, 1893, was done in Frohman's usual
lavish way. The company included not less than half a dozen people who
were then making their way toward stardom--Wilton Lackaye, Viola Allen,
Blanche Walsh, William Faversham, Frederick Bond, Bruce McRae, Paul
Arthur, W. H. Thompson, J. W. Piggott. "Aristocracy" was Bronson
Howard's reversion to the serenity of the society drama after the
spectacle of war. The first night's audience was fashionable. The
distinction of the cast lent much to the success of the occasion.

* * *

When John Drew called on Charles Frohman for the first time at his
offices at 1127 Broadway, his way was impeded by a bright-eyed, alert
young office-boy who bore the unromantic name of Peter Daly. He
incarnated every ill to which his occupation seems to be heir. Without
troubling himself to find