The extraordinary affinity that existed between Frohman and a small group of intimates was shown by an incident that occurred on shipboard. He and Dillingham were on their way to Europe. They were playing checkers in the smoking-room when an impertinent, pushing American came up and half hung himself over the table. Frohman said nothing, but made a very ridiculous move. Dillingham followed suit. "What chumps you are!" said the interloper, and went away. Frohman wanted to get rid of the man without saying anything. This was his way of doing it, and it succeeded. * * * Frohman was always having queer adventures out of which he spun the most amazing yarns. This is an experience that he liked to recount: When Augustus Thomas had an apartment in Paris he received a visit from Frohman. The flat was five flights up, but there was an elevator that worked by pushing a button. There was a ring at the bell of the Thomas apartment. When the playwright opened the door he found Frohman gasping for breath, and he sank exhausted on a settee. "I walked up," he managed to say. When he was able to talk Thomas said to him: "Why in Heaven's name didn't you use the elevator?" Frohman replied: "I couldn't make the woman down-stairs understand what I wanted. She made motions and showed me a little door, but I thought she had designs on my life, so I preferred to walk." * * * That Charles Frohman had the happy faculty of saying the right thing and saying it gracefully is well illustrated by the following: When the beautiful Scala Theater in London was opened it made such a sensation that Frohman asked Lestocq if he could not inspect it. The proprietor, Dr. Distin Maddick, being an old friend of Lestocq, the latter called informally with Frohman. While they were admiring the white stone and brass interior, Maddick was suddenly called away. He returned in a few minutes to say that a manager friend from Edinburgh, hearing that Frohman was in the theater, had come in and asked to be introduced. Of course Frohman acquiesced. After a little talk the gentleman said: "We have no beautiful theater like this in Edinburgh." Quickly Frohman replied, with his fascinating smile, "No, but you have Edinburgh." * * * Frohman hated exercise. In this he had a great community of interest with Mark Twain. On Sunday mornings, when he was out at his farm at White Plains, he would read all the dramatic news in the papers, and then he searched them carefully for items about people who had died from over-exertion. When he found one he was greatly pleased, and always sent it to Mark Twain. In order to get him to exercise Dillingham once took him for a stroll and pretended to be lost. The second time he tried this, however, Frohman discovered the subterfuge and refused to go walking. * * *