he
place where Peggotty's boat-hut might have lain on the sands. With
William Seymour, who knew every street from his study of "The Rivals,"
we listened to the abbey bells of Bath. And when "Romeo and Juliet" was
to be revived with Sothern and Marlowe, Frohman even proposed that we
should visit Verona. He only abandoned the idea on discovering that the
Veronese had no long-distance telephones, and that, while wandering
among the tombs of the Montagus and Capulets, he would be cut off from
his London office.

Having thus steeped himself in the atmosphere of his work, he set forth
to learn the rules of the game. I met him in Paris on his return from
New York. "How go the rules?" I asked.

"Rotten," said he. "Our American playwrights say there are no rules;
with them it is all inspiration. The Englishmen say that rules exist,
but what the rules are they either don't know or won't tell."

We went to the Concert Rouge. Those were the happy days when there were
no frills; when the price of admission was charged with what you drank;
when Saint-Saens accompanied his "Samson and Delilah" with an imaginary
flute obligato on a walking-stick; when Massenet, with his librettist,
Henri Cain, dozed quietly through the meditation of "Thais"; when the
students and their girls forgot frivolity under the spell of
"L'Arlesienne."

In a smoky corner sat a group of well-known French playwrights, headed
by G. A. Caillavet, afterward famous as author of "Le Roi." They were
indulging in a heated but whispered discussion. They welcomed Frohman
cordially, then returned to the debate.

"What are they talking about?" asked Frohman.

"The rules of the drama," said I.

"Then there are rules!" cried the manager, eagerly.

"Ask Caillavet," said I.

"Rules?" exclaimed Caillavet, who spoke English. "Are there rules of
painting, sculpture, music? Why, the drama is a mass of rules! It is
nothing but rules."

"And how long," faltered Frohman, thinking of his play--"how long would
it take to learn them?"

"A lifetime at the very least," answered Caillavet. Disconsolate,
Frohman led me out into the Rue de Tournon. Heartbroken, he convoyed me
into Foyot's, and drowned his sorrows in a grenadine.

From that hour he was a changed man. He apparently put aside all thought
of the drama whose name was to be stenciled on the summit of Mont Blanc;
yet, nevertheless, he applied himself assiduously to learning the
principles on which the theater was base