Charles's eye twinkled. He said, quickly:
"You are mistaken. My tailor will make you a coat for twenty dollars. Go down and get one."
Father went down to the fashionable Fifth Avenue tailor. Meanwhile Frohman called him up and gave instructions to make a coat for his father at a very low price and have the difference charged to him.
In an hour Henry Frohman came back all excitement. "I am a real business man," he said. "I persuaded that tailor of yours to make me an overcoat for twenty dollars."
Charles immediately gave him the twenty dollars and sent the tailor a check for the difference between that and the real price, which was ninety-five dollars. He dismissed the matter from his mind.
A few days later Charles had another visit from his father. This time he was in high glee. He could hardly wait to tell the great news.
"You've often said I wasn't a good business man," he told his son. "Well, I can prove to you that I am. The other night one of my friends admired my new overcoat so much that I sold it to him for thirty-five dollars."
Charles said nothing, but had to pay for another one-hundred-and-fifteen-dollar overcoat because he did not want to shatter his father's illusion.
Here is still another. When Frohman got back to New York from a trip few things interested him so much as a good dinner. It always wiped out the memory of hard times or unpleasant experiences. Once he returned from a costly visit to the West. On Broadway he met an old-time comedian who had been in one of his companies. His greeting was cordial.
"And now, 'C. F.,'" said the comedian, "you've got to come to dinner with me. We have a new club, for actors only, and we have the best roast beef in town. We make a specialty of a substantial, homelike dinner. Come right along."