rn on
the phonograph and let 'Alexander's Rag-time Band' cheer us up."

He got well enough to walk around with a stick, and with movement came a
return of the old enthusiasm. A man of less indomitable will would have
succumbed and become a permanent invalid. Not so with Frohman. He even
got humor out of his misfortune, because he called his cane his "wife."
He became a familiar sight on that part of Broadway between the
Knickerbocker Hotel and the Empire Theater as he walked to and fro. It
was about all the walking he could do.

He kept on producing plays, and despite the physical hardships under
which he labored he attended and conducted rehearsals. With the pain
settling in him more and more, he believed himself incurable. Yet less
than four people knew that he felt that the old titanic power was gone,
never to return.

The great war, on whose stupendous altar he was to be an innocent
victim, affected him strangely. The horror, the tragedy, the wantonness
of it all touched him mightily. Indeed, it seemed to be an obsession
with him, and he talked about it constantly, unmindful of the fact that
the cruel destiny that was shaping its bloody course had also marked him
for death.

Early during the war he saw some verses that made a deep impression on
him. They were called "In the Ambulance," and related to the experience
of a wounded soldier. He learned them by heart, and he never tired of
repeating them. They ran like this:

"_Two rows of cabbages;
Two of curly greens;
Two rows of early peas;
Two of kidney-beans._"

_That's what he's muttering,
Making such a song,
Keeping all the chaps awake
The whole night long._

_Both his legs are shot away,
And his head is light,
So he keeps on muttering
All the blessed night:_

"_Two rows of cabbages;
Two of curly greens;
Two rows of early peas,
And two of kidney-beans._"

It was Frohman's intense feeling about the war, that led him to produce
"The Hyphen." Its rejection by the public hurt him unspeakably. Yet he
regarded the fate of the play as just one more phase of the big game of
life. He smiled and went his way.

The rheumatism still oppressed him, but he turned his face resolutely
toward the future. War or peace, pain or relief, he was not to be
deprived of his annual trip to England. He was involved in some
litigation that required his presence in London. Besides, the city by