lays that the amateur company performed in Sandusky.

He even mixed the drama with business. Frequently after selling a bill
of goods he would be requested by a customer, who knew of his ability,
to recite or declaim a speech from one of the well-known German plays.

It was on his return from one of these expeditions that Henry Frohman
was greeted with the tidings that a third son had come to bear his name.
When he entered that little frame house the infantile Charles had made
his first entrance on the stage of life. It was June 17, 1860, a time
fateful in the history of the country, for already the storm-clouds of
the Civil War were brooding. It was pregnant with meaning for the
American theater, too, because this lusty baby was to become its
Napoleon.

Almost before Charles was able to walk his wise and far-seeing mother,
with a pride and responsibility that maintained the best traditions of
the mothers in Israel, began to realize the restrictions and limitations
of the Sandusky life.

"These boys of ours," she said to the husband, "have no future here.
They must be educated in New York. Their careers lie there."

Strong-willed and resolute, she sent the two older sons, one at a time,
on to the great city to be educated and make their way. The eldest,
Daniel, went first, soon followed by Gustave. In 1864, and largely due
to her insistent urging, the remainder of the family, which included the
youthful Charles, packed up their belongings and, with the proceeds of
the sale of the cigar factory, started on their eventful journey to New
York.

They first settled in one of the original tenement houses of New York,
on Rivington Street, subsequently moving to Eighth Street and Avenue D.
Before long they moved over to Third Street, while their fourth
residence was almost within the shadow of some of the best-known city
theaters.

Henry Frohman had, as was later developed in his son Charles, a peculiar
disregard of money values. Generous to a fault, his resources were
constantly at the call of the needy. His first business venture in New
York--a small soap factory on East Broadway--failed. Later he became
part owner of a distillery near Hoboken, which was destroyed by fire.
With the usual Frohman financial heedlessness, he had failed to renew
all his insurance policies, and the result was that he was left with but
a small surplus. Adversity, however, seemed to trickle from him like
water. Serene and smiling, he emerged