By this decisive failure Herne was much discouraged. Not so either Belasco or Mrs. Herne, and on a suggestion made by the latter it was determined to take the play on a tour into the East. “I took a benefit at the Baldwin,” Belasco told me, “and it _was_ a benefit! Everybody volunteered; Maguire [the manager of the Baldwin] gave us the use of the theatre; the actors gave their services; the orchestra gave theirs; the newspapers gave the ’ads.’ All that came in was clear gain, and I got a little more than $3,000. That was our working capital.” FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO CHICAGO. With money thus raised on Belasco’s behalf, and with a play projected by him, the business alliance was arranged,--the Hernes to have one-half interest and Belasco the other. A company was engaged and the expedition was undertaken,--the design being to act “Chums” in various cities on the way to the Atlantic Seaboard, with hope of securing an opening in New York and making a fortune. Ill luck, however, attended it. “Chums” was played in Salt Lake City and other places, but everywhere in vain. At last, the scenery having been seized for debt, the company was disbanded and the partners, almost penniless, made their way to Chicago. The chief managers in that city then were James Horace McVicker (1822-1896) and Richard Martin Hooley (1822-1893). Both were besought to produce “Chums” and both declined. “We were in a dreadful way,” said Belasco, in telling me this story; “we had gone to the old Sherman House and taken the smallest, cheapest rooms we could get, and Alvin Hurlbert, the proprietor, had let our bills run. But at last they had run so long we had to make an explanation,--and I did the explaining. It wasn’t an easy thing to do,--though I’d done it before, in the early, wild days in the West. But Hurlbert was very kind: ’I believe in you, my boy,’ he said, ’and it’s all right,’--so we had a little more time to hustle in. And we _hustled_! By chance Herne and I went into a kind of beer-garden, called the Coliseum, kept by John Hamlin. There was a stage, and “Fred” Wren, in “On Time,” was giving impersonations of German character,--sort of imitation of J. K. Emmet in ’Fritz.’ The ’business’ was bad; there weren’t thirty people in the house when Herne and I chanced in. I immediately proposed to Hamlin that we bring out ’Chums,’ which we had renamed ’Hearts of Oak.’ He agreed to let us have the theatre, but Hamlin had no money to invest, so we had to get a production and assemble a company, all without a cent of capital! However, we got credit in one place or another, and did it,--a production costing thousands, on credit, and without a dollar of our own in it! We had a big success, although Hamlin’s Coliseum wasn’t much of a place.” “HEARTS OF OAK.”