he chef, followed by two assistants,
bearing aloft a gigantic silver tureen which was placed on the table and
opened with great ceremony. Inside was a huge quantity of consomme with
two lonely oysters floating on top.

Frohman regarded it as a great joke, and ever afterward when he met
anybody in Paris that he did not like, he would say to them:

"If you want the finest oyster stew in the world, go to Durand's."

* * *

Frohman, who was always playing jokes on his friends, was sometimes the
victim himself. He was crossing the ocean with Haddon Chambers when the
latter was accosted by two enterprising young men who were arranging the
ship's concert. Chambers was asked to take part, but declined. Then he
had an inspiration.

"We have on board the greatest American singer of coon songs known to
the stage."

"Who is that?" asked the men.

"It's Charles Frohman."

The men gasped.

"Of course we knew him as a great manager, but we never knew he could
sing."

"Oh yes," said Chambers. "He is a great singer."

He pointed out Frohman and hid behind a lifeboat to await the result.
Soon he heard a sputter and a shriek of rage, and the two men came
racing down the boat as if pursued by some terror. Up came Frohman, his
face livid with rage.

"What do you think?" he said to Chambers, who stood innocently by.
"Those men had the nerve to ask me to sing a coon song. I have never
been so insulted in all my life."

He was so enraged that he wrote a letter to the steamship line about it
and withdrew his patronage from the company for several years in
consequence.

* * *

Here is another instance when the joke was on Frohman. No one viewed the
manager's immense success with keener pride or pleasure than his father,
Henry Frohman. As theater after theater came under the son's direction
the parent could gratify his great passion for giving people free passes
to its fullest extent. He would appear at the offices at the Empire
Theater with his pockets bulging with home-made cigars. The men in the
office always accepted the cigars, but never smoked them. But they gave
him all the passes he wanted.

One day the father stopped in to see Charles. It was a raw spring day.
Charles remarked that the overcoat Henry wore was too thin.

"Go to my tailor and get an overcoat," he said.

"Not much," said the father. "Your tailor is too expensive. He robs you.
He wouldn't make one under seventy-five dollars, and I never pay more
tha