"Well," he continued, "it ought to be called after that conjurer chap, Bengali, or whatever his name is. However, go ahead. Get Lackaye back from 'The District Attorney' company to which Palmer has lent him. Engage young Ditrichstein by all means for one of your Bohemians. Call in Virginia Harned and the rest of the stock company. And there you are."
With uncanny precision he had cast the leading rôles perfectly and on the impulse of the moment.
During the fortnight of the incubation of the play Potter saw Frohman nightly, for they were now fast friends. Frohman was curiously fascinated by "Bengali," as he insisted upon calling Svengali.
"We do it next Monday in Boston," said Potter, "and I count on your coming to see it."
Frohman went to Boston to see the second performance. After the play he and Potter walked silently across the Common to the Thorndyke Hotel. In his room Frohman broke into speech:
"They are roasting it awfully in New York," he began. "Yet Joe Jefferson says it will go around the world." Then he added, "They say you have cut out all the Bohemian stuff."
"Nevertheless," replied Potter, "W. A. Brady has gone to New York to-night to offer Mr. Palmer ten thousand dollars on account for the road rights."
"Well," said Frohman, showing his hand at last, "Jefferson and Brady are right, and if Palmer will let me in I'll go half and half, or, if he prefers, I'll take it all."
At supper after the first performance at the Garden Theater in New York, Frohman advised Sir Herbert Tree to capture the play for London. Henceforth, wherever he traveled, "Trilby" seemed to pursue him.
"I've seen your old 'Bengali,'" he wrote Potter, "in Rome, Vienna, Berlin, everywhere. It haunts me. And, as you cut out the good Bohemian stuff, I'll use it myself at the Empire."