“Yours of October the 1st received. Yes, I did answer your former letter. No doubt it followed you about and was finally lost. Things theatrical are in a very bad way over here just now, and I am still in the midst of a big combat with what is known as the Theatrical Syndicate--a combination of men who have got together to disgrace the Stage and commercialize it, root and branch. It is rule or ruin with them, and unless they can force a heavy tribute from a man he is blacklisted forthwith. I am fortunate enough to be on their blacklist, and consequently am obliged, for the present, to move with cautious steps and to make no more productions than I can safely place. But it is to be hoped that a season or two will see the lifting of this dark cloud. When that time comes, I shall be only too happy to introduce you in this country. I know your work and I feel sure that you would make yourself heard over here had you the opportunity. Will you not drop me a line now and then? I am always pleased to hear from you. “Faithfully yours, “DAVID BELASCO.” (_David Belasco to Peter Robertson, San Francisco._) RIGHT “Belasco Theatre, New York, “April 25, 1904. “Dear Peter:-- “[E. D.] Price and Fred [Belasco] have been ‘kicking’ about the vile cigars in San Francisco, so I am sending you a few weeds that ought to be better than the Barbary Coast perfectos. Sorry I can’t deliver them in person, but I cannot get away this year; so when you are smoking them think of your old Four-o’clock-in-the-morning-pie-chum. Heavens, my dear Peter, I often think of those dear old days! They were struggling days for us, to be sure, but sometimes I feel that, at least as far as I am concerned, they were the happiest ones of life. Ambition is a hard, hard master, and from the moment when I left ’Frisco it has been constant work-work-work with me, morning-noon-and-night--winter and summer! I don’t think I have had half-a-dozen hours to myself in all that time, and to make my lot easier, away off here in the East, I am surrounded by that inartistic, low-lived Theatrical Syndicate, which for some reason or other,--certainly not justly for anything I have done,--has waged a relentless war against me. And since I cannot with honor play in Syndicate houses I am sending my stars and productions anywhere that I can find a roof to cover them. So far they have not crushed me, as they said they would, for the public and the press throughout the country have stood by me, and as long as I continue to deserve their sympathies and friendship I shall be victorious. In this combine against me, my dear Peter, are Al. Hayman and the Frohmans, to whom you know I have given the best years of my life, helping to make fame and fortune for them. Of course, with Charles