id you do this play?" asked William H. Crane.

"Because I wanted to see it played," answered Frohman. "I knew it would
not be successful, but I simply had to do it. I saw every performance
and I liked it better every time I saw it."

Often Frohman would make a contract with a playwright for a play, and
long before the first night he would realize that it had no chance. Yet
he kept his word with the author, and it was always produced.

The case of "The Heart of a Thief," by the late Paul Armstrong, is
typical. Frohman paid him an advance of fifteen hundred dollars. After a
week of rehearsals every one connected with the play except Armstrong
realized that it was impossible.

Frohman, however, gave it an out-of-town opening and brought it to the
Hudson Theater in New York, where it ran for one week. When he decided
to close it he called the company together and said:

"You've done the best you could. It's all my fault. I thought it was a
good play. I was mistaken."

Frohman took vast pride in the "clean quality" of his plays, as he often
phrased it. His whole theatrical career was a rebuke to the salacious.
He originally owned Edward Sheldon's dramatization of Suderman's "The
Song of Songs." On its production in Philadelphia it was assailed by the
press as immoral. Frohman immediately sold it to A. H. Woods, who
presented it with enormous financial success in New York.

He was scrupulous to the last degree in his business relations with
playwrights. Once a well-known English author, who was in great
financial need, cabled to his agent in America that he would sell
outright for two thousand dollars all the dramatic rights to a certain
play of his that Frohman and an associate had on the road at that time.
The associate thought it was a fine opportunity and personally cabled
the money through the agent. Then he went to Frohman and said, with
great satisfaction:

"I've made some money for us to-day."

"How's that?" asked Frohman.

Then his associate told the story of the author's predicament and what
he had done. He stood waiting for commendation. Instead, Frohman's face
darkened; he rang a bell, and when his secretary appeared he said:

"Please wire Blank [mentioning the playwright's name] that the money
cabled him to-day was an advance on future royalties."

Then he turned to his associate and said:

"Never, so long as you work with me or are associated with me in any
enterprise, take advantage of the distre