The Mastodons were now making their way to the Pacific coast. At the same time Gustave Frohman was in San Francisco with the Number One "Hazel Kirke" Company, direct from the Madison Square Theater in New York, which was playing at the California Theater. One morning in May, 1881, he received the following telegram from Charles, dated Salt Lake City: _Am stranded here with the "Big Forty." So is Frank Sanger with "A Bunch of Keys." Theater management has failed to send railroad fares. Wire me what you can. Will return amount out of receipts Bush Street Theater._ The manager of the Bush Street Theater, in San Francisco, had agreed to provide railroad transportation for the company from Salt Lake City to San Francisco and had not kept his agreement. The receipts in the former city did not leave a sufficient surplus to negotiate this jump. Gustave wired the needed cash, and Charles showed up on time in San Francisco. For the second and only other time in his theatrical career Charles was somewhat downcast. Despite his effective services during the preceding years, Haverly had only raised his salary to twenty-five dollars a week. The boy had handled hundreds of thousands of dollars and had helped in no small way to give to the organization its prestige and its _esprit de corps_. He was now, in the phraseology of his associates, "the whole show." His word was law with the company, and the men adored him. He met Gustave at the Palace Hotel and said to him, "I suppose the time has come for me to quit Haverly." "All right," said Gustave, still the good angel. "I'll put you out ahead of our Number Two 'Hazel Kirke' Company at a salary of seventy-five dollars a week. You can start out right away. What do you say?" Charles thought a moment, and then said: "Well, Gus, it's pretty tough to go ahead of a Number Two company even at seventy-five dollars a week when you have been manager of Haverly's Mastodons. The money doesn't mean anything to me. I like the minstrel boys and they like me." He still hesitated and walked up and down the room two or three times, as was his habit. Finally he came over to his brother and said, decisively: "I'll take it." During this memorable visit to San Francisco occurred another event that had large influence on the whole future life of the young man. One night in a famous ratheskeller on Kearney Street he saw an artistic-looking youth with curly hair and dreamy eyes sitting in the midst of a group of actors. This youth was David Belasco, who had passed from actor to author-stage-manager and whose melodrama, "American Born," was running at the Baldwin Theater. Frohman had seen this play and was much impressed with it. Thrillers had interested him from the start. Gustave, who was with Belasco, said to him: "There's my brother Charley. You ought to know him."