whole Frohman bill at the Walnut Street
Hotel. Although Charles was amiable and smiling, the hotel thought that
his cheerful demeanor was an unsatisfactory return for board and
lodging, so he was asked to vacate his room after a few days. He now
spent his time walking about the streets and eating one meal a day. At
night he sat in the summer-gardens "across the Rhine," listening to the
music, and then seeking out a place where he could get a bed for a
quarter.

By giving an I O U to the same Pennsylvania ticket-agent who had staked
Gustave, and with five dollars telegraphed by the indefatigable brother
back in New York, he got as far as Philadelphia. He landed there without
a cent in his pocket.

"I must get home," he said.

He got on a day-coach of a New York train without the vestige of a
ticket and still penniless. In those days the cars were heated by
stoves, and near each stove was a large coal-box.

When Charles heard the conductor's cry, "Tickets, please!" he hid
himself in the coal-box and remained there until the awful personage
passed by. Being small, he could pull the lid of the box down and be
completely hidden from sight. After the conductor passed, he scrambled
out and resumed his seat. He had to repeat this performance several
times on the trip. Afterward in speaking of it he said:

"I wasn't a bit frightened for myself. I knew I would suffer no harm. My
chief concern was for a kind-hearted old man who sat in the seat next
to the coal-box. He was much more agitated than I was."

On a bright May afternoon Charles turned up, sooty but smiling, at 250
East Seventy-eighth Street, where the Frohman family then lived. He had
walked all the way up-town from the ferry. His first greeting to Gustave
was:

"Well, when do we start again?"

III

PICTURESQUE DAYS AS MINSTREL MANAGER

Instead of discouraging him, Charles Frohman's baptism of hardship with
the John Dillon companies only filled him with a renewed ardor for the
theatrical business. The hunger for the road was strong in him. Again it
was Gustave who proved to be the good angel, and who now led him to a
picturesque experience.

During the summer of 1878 J. H. (Jack) Haverly acquired the Callender
Original Georgia Minstrels, and Gustave, who had an important hand in
the negotiation, was retained as manager. He started for the Pacific
coast with his dusky aggregation, and in Chicago fell in with his new
employer.

Haverly was then at