Wheatleigh, and Sadie Bigelow. The play opened to capacity and
the indications were that the engagement would be a success; but it
suddenly fizzled out. On Sunday morning, when Charles read the papers
with their reviews of the week, he said to Randall, with his usual
philosophy:

"We've got a magnificent frost, but it was worth doing."

This production cost the youthful manager ten thousand dollars.

* * *

Frohman still had control of "time" at the Standard, so he now put on a
play, translated by Henri Rochefort, called "A Daughter of Ireland," in
which Georgia Cayvan had the title role. Here he scored another failure,
but his ardor remained undampened and he went on to what looked at that
moment to be the biggest thing he had yet tried.

Dion Boucicault was one of the great stage figures of his period. He was
both actor and author, and wrote or adapted several hundred plays,
including such phenomenal successes as "Colleen Bawn," "Shaughraun,"
which ran for a year simultaneously in London, New York, and Melbourne,
and "London Assurance." There was much talk of his latest comedy, "The
Jilt." Frohman, who always wanted to be associated with big names, now
arranged by cable to produce this play at the Standard. Once more he
plunged on an expensive company which included, among others, Fritz
Williams, Louise Thorndyke, and Helen Bancroft.

For four weeks he cleared a thousand a week. Then he put the company on
the road, where it did absolutely nothing. Charles, who had an uncanny
sense of analysis of play failures, now declared that the reason for the
failure was that theater-goers resented Boucicault's treatment of his
first wife, Agnes Robertson. Boucicault had declared that he was not the
father of her child, and when she sued him in England the courts gave
her the verdict. Meanwhile Boucicault married, and in the eyes of the
world he was a bigamist. This experience, it is interesting to add,
taught Charles Frohman never to engage stars on whom there was the
slightest smirch of scandal or disrepute.

At Montreal Boucicault refused to continue the tour, and this
engagement, like so many of its predecessors, left Charles in a
financial hole. Despite all these reverses he was able to make a
livelihood out of the booking end of the office, which thrived and grew
with each month. Nor was he without his sense of humor in those days.

One day he met a certain manager who had lost a great deal of money in
comic opera.