the terrific strain under which he
had worked all these years, as both actor and producer. William Seymour
stepped into his shoes, and has retained that position ever since.

Charles was constantly bringing about revolutions. Through him Francis
Wilson, for example, departed from musical comedy, in which he had made
a great success, and took up straight plays. He began with Clyde Fitch's
French adaptation of "Cousin Billy," and thus commenced a connection
under Charles Frohman that lasted many years. With him, as with all his
other stars, there was never a scrap of paper.

[Illustration: _E. H. SOTHERN_]

Frohman and Wilson met at the Savoy Hotel in London one day. Frohman
had often urged him to quit musical comedy, and he now said he was ready
to make the plunge.

"All right," said Frohman. "I will give you so much a week and a
percentage of the profits."

"It's done," said Wilson.

"Do you want a contract?" asked Frohman.

"No."

This was about all that ever happened in the way of arrangements between
Frohman and his stars, to some of whom he paid fortunes.

During these years Charles had watched with growing interest the
development of a young girl from Bloomington, Illinois, Margaret
Illington by name. She had appeared successfully in the old Lyceum Stock
Company when it was transferred by Daniel Frohman to Daly's, and had
played with James K. Hackett and E. H. Sothern. Charles now cast her in
Pinero's play "A Wife Without a Smile." Afterward she appeared in
Augustus Thomas's piece "Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots," and made such a
strong impression that Frohman made her leading woman with John Drew in
Pinero's "His House in Order."

Just about this time Charles, whose interest in French plays had
constantly increased through the years, singled out Henri Bernstein as
the foremost of the younger French playwrights. He secured his
remarkable play "The Thief" for America. He now produced this play at
the Lyceum with Miss Illington and Kyrle Bellew as co-stars, and it
proved to be an enormous success, continuing there for a whole season,
and then duplicating its triumph on the road, where Frohman at one time
had four companies playing it in various parts of the country.

XI

THE CONQUEST OF THE LONDON STAGE

Great as were Charles Frohman's achievements in America, they were more
than matched in many respects by his activities in England. He was the
one American manager who made an impress on the Briti