n and told him that she would
waive her appearance and that Belasco must go ahead on the Empire play,
which he did.

Just what kind of play to produce was the problem. Frohman still clung
to the mascot of war. The blue coat and brass buttons had turned the
tide for him with "Shenandoah," and he was superstitious in wanting
another stirring and martial piece. Belasco had become interested in
Indians, but he also wanted to introduce the evening-clothes feature.
Hence came the inspiration of a ball at an army post in the far West
during the Indian-fighting days. This episode proved to be the big
dramatic situation of the new piece.

Then came the night when Belasco read the play to Frohman, who walked up
and down the floor. When the author finished, Frohman rushed up to him
with a brilliant smile on his face and said:

"David, you've done the whole business! You've got pepper and salt,
soup, entree, roast, salad, dessert, coffee; it's a real play, and I
know it will be a success."

Having finished the work, which Belasco wrote in collaboration with
Franklin Fyles, then dramatic editor of the New York _Sun_, they needed
a striking name. So they sent the manuscript to Daniel, down at the
Lyceum, for Charles always declared he had been happy in the selection
of play titles. Back came the manuscript with his approval of the work,
and with the title "The Girl I Left Behind Me." This they eagerly
adopted.

Long before "The Girl I Left Behind Me" manuscript was ready to leave
Belasco's hands, Frohman was assembling his company. Instead of having a
star, he decided to have an all-round stock company. The success of this
kind of institution had been amply proved at Daly's, Wallack's, the
Madison Square, and the Lyceum. Hence the Charles Frohman Stock Company,
which had scored so heavily with "Men and Women" and "The Lost Paradise"
at Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater, now became the famous Empire
Theater Stock Company and incidentally the greatest of all star
factories. William Morris was retained as the first leading man, and the
company included Orrin Johnson, Cyril Scott, W. H. Thompson, Theodore
Roberts, Sydney Armstrong, Odette Tyler, and Edna Wallace. The child in
the play was a precocious youngster called "Wally" Eddinger, who is the
familiar Wallace Eddinger of the present-day stage.

The rehearsals for "The Girl I Left Behind Me" were held in the Standard
Theater, which Frohman had already booked for productions