used to tell this story and say that he never had such an
appetite for roast beef as he did when he rose from that club table to
go out again into Broadway.

* * *

Frohman was always interested in mechanical things. When the phonograph
was first put on the market he had one in his office at 1127 Broadway.
Once in London he found a mechanical tiger that growled, walked, and
even clawed. He enjoyed watching it crouch and spring.

He took it with him on the steamer back to New York, and played with it
on the deck. One day Richard Croker, who was a fellow-passenger, came
along and became interested in the toy, whereupon Frohman showed him how
it worked.

Frohman told of this episode with great satisfaction. He would always
end his description by saying:

"Fancy showing the boss of Tammany Hall how to work a tiger!"

* * *

The extraordinary affinity that existed between Frohman and a small
group of intimates was shown by an incident that occurred on shipboard.
He and Dillingham were on their way to Europe. They were playing
checkers in the smoking-room when an impertinent, pushing American came
up and half hung himself over the table. Frohman said nothing, but made
a very ridiculous move. Dillingham followed suit.

"What chumps you are!" said the interloper, and went away.

Frohman wanted to get rid of the man without saying anything. This was
his way of doing it, and it succeeded.

* * *

Frohman was always having queer adventures out of which he spun the most
amazing yarns. This is an experience that he liked to recount:

When Augustus Thomas had an apartment in Paris he received a visit from
Frohman. The flat was five flights up, but there was an elevator that
worked by pushing a button.

There was a ring at the bell of the Thomas apartment. When the
playwright opened the door he found Frohman gasping for breath, and he
sank exhausted on a settee.

"I walked up," he managed to say. When he was able to talk Thomas said
to him:

"Why in Heaven's name didn't you use the elevator?"

Frohman replied:

"I couldn't make the woman down-stairs understand what I wanted. She
made motions and showed me a little door, but I thought she had designs
on my life, so I preferred to walk."

* * *

That Charles Frohman had the happy faculty of saying the right thing and
saying it gracefully is well illustrated by the following:

When the beautiful Scala Theater in London was opened it made such a
sensation that