Paul Potter was making a periodical visit to New York in 1901. David
Belasco came to see him at the Holland House.

"Paul," said he, "C. F. and I want you to make us a version of Ouida's
'Under Two Flags' for Blanche Bates."

"I never read the novel," said Potter.

"You can dramatize it without reading it," remarked Belasco, and in a
month he was sitting in Frohman's rooms at Sherry's and Potter was
reading to them his dramatization of "Under Two Flags," throwing in, for
good measure, a ride from "Mazeppa" and a snow-storm from "The Queen of
Sheba."

"I like all but the last scene," said Frohman. "When _Cigarette_ rides
up those mountains with her lover's pardon, the pardon is, to all
intents and purposes, delivered. The actual delivery is an anti-climax.
What the audience want to see is a return to the garret where the lovers
lived and were happy."

As they walked home that night Belasco said to Potter:

"That was a great point which C. F. made. What remarkable intuition he
has!"

Frohman and Potter used to watch Belasco at work, teaching the actors to
act, the singers to sing, the dancers to dance.

Then came a hitch.

"Gros, our scene-painter," said Frohman, "maintains that _Cigarette_
couldn't ride up any mountains near the Algerian coast, for the nearest
mountains are the Atlas Mountains, eight hundred miles away."

He undertook to convert Mr. Gros. Fortunately for him the author of the
play stood in the Garden Theater while Belasco was rehearsing a dance.

"Oh," said he, "if it's a comic opera you can have all the mountains you
please. I thought it was a serious drama."

Then Frohman ventured to criticize the mountain torrent.

"What's the matter with the torrent?" called Belasco, while _Cigarette_
and her horse stood on the slope.

"It doesn't look like water at all," said Frohman.

Just then the horse plunged his nose into the torrent and licked it
furiously. Criticism was silenced. The play was a big, popular success,
and with it Blanche Bates arrived as star.

One day, a year later, Frohman remarked to Potter in Paris, "What do you
say to paying Ouida a visit in Florence?"

He and Belasco had paid her considerable royalties. He thought she would
be gratified by a friendly call. Frohman and Potter obtained letters of
introduction from bankers, consuls, and Florentine notables, and sent
them in advance to Ouida. The landlord of the inn gave them a
resplendent two-horse carriage, with a liv