"The rules of the drama," said I.
"Then there are rules!" cried the manager, eagerly.
"Ask Caillavet," said I.
"Rules?" exclaimed Caillavet, who spoke English. "Are there rules of painting, sculpture, music? Why, the drama is a mass of rules! It is nothing but rules."
"And how long," faltered Frohman, thinking of his play—"how long would it take to learn them?"
"A lifetime at the very least," answered Caillavet. Disconsolate, Frohman led me out into the Rue de Tournon. Heartbroken, he convoyed me into Foyot's, and drowned his sorrows in a grenadine.
From that hour he was a changed man. He apparently put aside all thought of the drama whose name was to be stenciled on the summit of Mont Blanc; yet, nevertheless, he applied himself assiduously to learning the principles on which the theater was based.
Another winter had passed before we sat side by side on the terrace of the Café Napolitain.
"I have asked Harry Pettitt, the London melodramatist," Frohman said, "to write me a play. 'I warn you, Frohman,' he replied, 'that I have only one theme—the Persecuted Woman.' Dion Boucicault, who was present, said, 'Add the Persecuted Girl.' Joseph Jefferson was with us, and Jefferson remarked, 'Add the Persecuted Man.' So was Henry Irving, who said: 'Pity is the trump card; but be Aristotelian, my boy; throw in a little Terror; with Pity I can generally go through a season, as with 'Charles the First' or 'Olivia'; with Terror and Pity combined I am liable to have something that will outlast my life." And Irving mentioned "The Bells" and "The Lyons Mail."
"But who will write you your Terror and Pity?" I asked Frohman.