often puts on his own work!

When Frohman first read "Peter Pan" he was so entranced that he could
not resist telling all his friends about it. He would stop them in the
street and act out the scenes. Yet it required the most stupendous
courage and confidence to put on a play that, from the manuscript,
sounded like a combination of circus and extravaganza; a play in which
children flew in and out of rooms, crocodiles swallowed alarm-clocks, a
man exchanged places with his dog in its kennel, and various other
seemingly absurd and ridiculous things happened.

But Charles believed in Barrie. He had gone to an extraordinary expense
to produce "Peter Pan" in England. He duplicated it in the United
States. No other character in all her repertory made such a swift appeal
to Miss Adams as _Peter Pan_. She saw in him the idealization of
everything that was wonderful and wistful in childhood.

The way she prepared for the part was characteristic of her attitude
toward her work. She took the manuscript with her up to the Catskills.
She isolated herself for a month; she walked, rode, communed with
nature, but all the while she was studying and absorbing the character
which was to mean so much to her career. In the great friendly open
spaces in which little _Peter_ himself delighted, and where he was king,
she found her inspiration for interpretation of the wondrous boy.

The try-out was made in Washington at the old National Theater. It went
with considerable success, although the first-night audience was
somewhat mystified and did not know exactly what to say or do.

It was when the play was launched on November 6, 1905, at the Empire
Theater in New York, that little _Peter_ really came into his own. The
human birds, the droll humor, the daring allegory, above all the
appealing, almost tragic, spectacle of _Peter_ playing his pipe up in
the tree-tops of the Never-Never Land, all contributed to an event that
was memorable in more ways than one.

On this night developed the remarkable and thrilling feature in "Peter
Pan" which made the adorable dream-child the best beloved of all
American children. It came when _Peter_ rushed forward to the footlights
in the frantic attempt to save the life of his devoted little _Tinker
Bell_, and asked:

"Do you believe in fairies?"

It registered a whole new and intimate relation between actress and
audience, and had the play possessed no other distinctive feature, this
alone would have