"I would like to very much if I could just write a check and not bother with all the ceremony." * * * Although he never spoke of his great power in the profession, occasionally there was a glimpse of how he felt about it as this incident shows: Once, when Frohman and Paul Potter were coming back from Atlantic City, Potter picked up a theatrical paper and said: "Shall I read you the theatrical news?" "No," said Frohman. "I _make_ theatrical news." * * * In that supreme test of a man's character--his attitude toward money--he shone. Though his enterprises involved millions, Frohman had an extraordinary disregard of money. He felt its power, but he never idolized it. To him it was a means to an end. He summed up his whole attitude one day when he said: "My work is to produce plays that succeed, so that I can produce plays that will not succeed. That is why I must have money. "What I would really like to do is to produce a wonderful something to which I would only go myself. My pleasure would be in seeing a remarkable performance that nobody else could see. But I can't do that. The next best thing is to produce something for the few critical people. That is what I'm trying for. I have to work through the commercial--it is the white heat through which the artistic in me has to come." It was his answer to the oft-made charge of "commercialism." No one, perhaps, has summed up this money attitude of Frohman's better than George Bernard Shaw, who said of him: "There is a prevalent impression that Charles Frohman is a hard-headed American man of business who would not look at anything that is not likely to pay. On the contrary, he is the most wildly romantic and adventurous man of my acquaintance. As Charles XII. became an excellent soldier because of his passion for putting himself in the way of being killed, so Charles Frohman became a famous manager through his passion for putting himself in the way of being ruined." In many respects Frohman's feeling about money was almost childlike. He left all financial details to his subordinates. All he wanted to do was to produce plays and be let alone. Yet he had an infinite respect for the man to whom he had to pay a large sum. He felt that the actor or author who could command it was invested with peculiar significance. Upon himself he spent little. He once said: "All I want is a good meal, a good cigar, good clothes, a good bed to sleep in, and freedom to produce whatever plays I like." He was a magnificent loser. Failure never disturbed him. When he saw that a piece was doomed he indulged in no obituary talk. "Let's go to the next," he said, and on he went.