Most of the Chicago critics liked "Shenandoah." But there was one exception, a brilliant Irishman on _The Tribune_. Paul Potter, whose play, "The City Directory," was about to be produced in Chicago, was a close friend of Howard. He wanted to do something for the Howard play, so he got permission from Robert W. Patterson, editor in chief of _The Tribune_, to write a Sunday page article about "Shenandoah." Frohman was immensely pleased, and through this he met Potter, who became one of his intimates. Then came the opening of Potter's play at the Chicago Opera House. Although Potter knew most of the critics, there was a feeling that they would forget all friendship and do their worst. Five minutes after the curtain went up the piece seemed doomed. But an extraordinary thing happened. From a stage box suddenly came sounds of uncontrollable mirth. The audience, and especially the critics, looked to see who was enjoying the play so strenuously, and they beheld Charles Frohman and Bronson Howard. The critics were puzzled. Here was a great playwright in the flush of an enormous success and a rising young manager evidently enjoying the performance. The mentors of public taste were so impressed that they praised the farce and started "The City Directory" on a career of remarkable success. Frohman and Howard were repaying the good turn that Potter had done for "Shenandoah." * * * Charles Frohman now had a money-making success. "Shenandoah" was the dramatic talk of the whole country; it did big business everywhere, and its courageous young producer came in for praise and congratulation on all sides. The manager might well have netted what was in those days a huge fortune out of this enterprise, but his unswerving sense of honor led him to immediately discharge all his obligations. He wiped out the Wallack's tour debts, and he eventually took up notes aggregating forty-two thousand dollars that he had given to a well-known Chicago printer who had befriended him in years gone by. What was most important, he was now free to unfurl his name to the breezes and to do business "on his own." * * * Charles immediately launched himself on another sea of productions. The most important was Gillette's "All the Comforts of Home," which he put on at Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater. Frohman had just acquired the lease of this theater. Already a big idea was simmering in his mind, and the leasehold was essential to its consummation. On May 8, 1890, he produced the new Gillette play, which scored a success. This production marked another one of the many significant epochs in Frohman's life because it witnessed the first appearance of little Maude Adams under the Charles Frohman management.