boy who had
twined himself about the American manager's heart.

* * *

Charles was now a conspicuous and prominent figure in English theatrical
life. The great were his friends and his opinion was much quoted. In
addition to his sole control of the Duke of York's, he had interests in
a dozen other playhouses. He liked the English way of doing business.
Yet, despite what many people believed to be a strong pro-British
tendency, he was always deeply and patriotically American, and he lost
several fortunes in pioneering the American play and the American actor
in England.

To name the American plays that he produced in London would be to give
almost a complete catalogue of American drama revealed to English eyes.
Curiously enough, at least two plays, "The Lion and the Mouse" and "Paid
in Full," that had made enormous successes in America, failed utterly in
England under his direction. He gave England such typically American
dramas as "The Great Divide," "Brewster's Millions," "Alias Jimmy
Valentine," "Years of Discretion," "A Woman's Way," "On the Quiet," and
"The Dictator."

In addition to Gillette he presented Billie Burke in "Love Watches,"
William Collier in "The Dictator" and "On the Quiet," and Ethel
Barrymore in "Cynthia."

With his presentation of Collier he did one of his characteristic
strokes of enterprise. Marie Tempest was playing at the Comedy in
London. He had always been anxious to try Collier's unctuous American
humor on the British, so the American comedian swapped engagements with
Miss Tempest. She came over to the Criterion in New York to do "The
Freedom of Suzanne," while Collier took her time at the Comedy in "The
Dictator." He scored a great success and remained nearly a year.

* * *

The time was now ripe for the most brilliant of all the Charles Frohman
achievements in England. Had he done nothing else than the Repertory
Theater he would have left for himself an imperishable monument of
artistic endeavor. The extraordinary feature of this undertaking was
that it was left for an American to finance and promote in the very
cradle of the British drama the highest and finest attempt yet made to
encourage that drama. The Repertory Theater would have proclaimed any
manager the open-handed patron of drama for drama's sake.

The National or Repertory Theater idea, which was the antidote for the
long run, the agency for the production of plays that had no sustained
box-office virtue, which took