"Well, Governor, if you want to go back to Maidenhead I'll do it for half-price."
A short time after this incident Frohman, whose purse was none too full then, asked some people to dine with him at the Hotel Cecil. By some mistake he and his party were shown into a room that had been arranged for a very elaborate dinner. Before he realized it the waiter began to serve the meal. He soon knew that it was not the menu he had ordered, and was costing twenty times more. But he was game and stuck to it. It was midwinter, and when the fresh peaches came on he said to the woman on his right:
"This will break me, I know, but we might as well have a good time."
Frohman almost invariably took one of his American friends to England with him. It was usually Charles Dillingham, Paul Potter, or William Gillette.
On one of Gillette's many trips with him Frohman got up an elaborate supper for Mark Twain at the Savoy and invited a brilliant group of celebrities, including all three of the Irvings, Beerbohm Tree, Chauncey M. Depew, Sir Charles Wyndham, Haddon Chambers, Nat Goodwin, and Arthur Bouchier. In his inconspicuous way, however, he made it appear that Gillette was giving the supper.
Midnight arrived, and Twain had not shown up. It was before the days of taxis, so Dillingham was sent after him in a hansom. After going to the wrong address, he finally located the humorist in Chelsea. He found Mark Twain sitting in his dressing-gown, smoking a Pittsburg stogie and reading a book.
"Did you forget all about the supper?" asked Dillingham.
"No," was the drawling reply, "but I didn't know where the blamed thing was. I had a notion that some one of you would come for me."
Mark Twain and Frohman were great friends. They were often together in London. Their favorite diversion was to play "hearts."
The great humorist once drew a picture of Charles, and under it wrote: