eloped such
extraordinary swiftness that patrons in the office often stopped to
watch him. In throwing papers over the counter it was necessary to be
accurate and positive, and here came the first manifestation of his
dogged determination. He never lost his cunning in counting papers, and
sometimes, when he was rich and famous, he would take a bundle of
newspapers, to help a newsboy in the street, and run through them with
all his old skill and speed.

* * *

Though his fingers were in the newspapers, his heart yearned for the
theater. This ambition was heightened by the fact that his brother
Daniel, having heeded the lure of Gustave, joined the Callender
Minstrels as advance-agent, while Gustave remained back with the show.
Slowly but surely the theater was annexing the Frohman boys. In the
summer of 1874 Charles was drawn into its charmed circle, and in a
picturesque fashion.

It was the custom for minstrel companies and other theatrical
combinations to rent theaters outright during the dull summer months.
The playhouses were glad to get the rental, and the organizations could
remain intact during what would otherwise be a period of disorganization
and loss. Gustave, therefore, took Hooley's Theater in Brooklyn for
summer minstrel headquarters, and on a memorable morning in July Charles
was electrified to receive the following letter from him:

_You can begin your theatrical career in the box-office of Hooley's
Theater in Brooklyn. Take a ferry and look at the theater. Hooley
is going to rent it to us for the summer. Your work will begin as
ticket-seller. You will have to sell 25, 50, and 75 cent tickets,
and they will all be hard tickets, that is, no reserved seats. Get
some pasteboard slips or a pack of cards and practise handling
them. Your success will lie in the swiftness with which you can
hand them out. With these rehearsals you will be able to do your
work well and look like a professional._

Charles immediately bought a pack of the thickest playing-cards he could
find and began to practise with them. Soon he became an expert shuffler.
Often he used his father's cigar counter for a make-believe box-office
sill, and across it he handed out the pasteboards to imaginary patrons.
A dozen times he went over to Brooklyn and gazed with eager expectancy
at the old theater, destined, by reason of his association with it, to
be a historic landmark in the annals of Ameri