"I like all but the last scene," said Frohman. "When _Cigarette_ rides up those mountains with her lover's pardon, the pardon is, to all intents and purposes, delivered. The actual delivery is an anti-climax. What the audience want to see is a return to the garret where the lovers lived and were happy." As they walked home that night Belasco said to Potter: "That was a great point which C. F. made. What remarkable intuition he has!" Frohman and Potter used to watch Belasco at work, teaching the actors to act, the singers to sing, the dancers to dance. Then came a hitch. "Gros, our scene-painter," said Frohman, "maintains that _Cigarette_ couldn't ride up any mountains near the Algerian coast, for the nearest mountains are the Atlas Mountains, eight hundred miles away." He undertook to convert Mr. Gros. Fortunately for him the author of the play stood in the Garden Theater while Belasco was rehearsing a dance. "Oh," said he, "if it's a comic opera you can have all the mountains you please. I thought it was a serious drama." Then Frohman ventured to criticize the mountain torrent. "What's the matter with the torrent?" called Belasco, while _Cigarette_ and her horse stood on the slope. "It doesn't look like water at all," said Frohman. Just then the horse plunged his nose into the torrent and licked it furiously. Criticism was silenced. The play was a big, popular success, and with it Blanche Bates arrived as star. One day, a year later, Frohman remarked to Potter in Paris, "What do you say to paying Ouida a visit in Florence?" He and Belasco had paid her considerable royalties. He thought she would be gratified by a friendly call. Frohman and Potter obtained letters of introduction from bankers, consuls, and Florentine notables, and sent them in advance to Ouida. The landlord of the inn gave them a resplendent two-horse carriage, with a liveried coachman and a footman. Frohman objected to the footman as undemocratic. The landlord insisted that it was Florentine etiquette, and shrugged his shoulders when they departed, seeming to think that they were bound on a perilous journey. Through the perfumed, flower-laden hills they climbed, the Arno gleaming below. The footman took in their cards to the villa of Mlle. de la Ramee. He promptly returned. "The signora is indisposed," he remarked. The visitors sent him back to ask if they might come some other day. Again he returned. "The signora is indisposed," was the only answer he could get. Potter and Frohman drove away. Frohman was hurt. He did not try to conceal it. "That's the first author," he said, "who ever turned me down. Anyway, the pancakes at lunch were delicious." He met rebuff--as he met loss--with infinite humor. * * *