"I must get home," he said.
He got on a day-coach of a New York train without the vestige of a ticket and still penniless. In those days the cars were heated by stoves, and near each stove was a large coal-box.
When Charles heard the conductor's cry, "Tickets, please!" he hid himself in the coal-box and remained there until the awful personage passed by. Being small, he could pull the lid of the box down and be completely hidden from sight. After the conductor passed, he scrambled out and resumed his seat. He had to repeat this performance several times on the trip. Afterward in speaking of it he said:
"I wasn't a bit frightened for myself. I knew I would suffer no harm. My chief concern was for a kind-hearted old man who sat in the seat next to the coal-box. He was much more agitated than I was."
On a bright May afternoon Charles turned up, sooty but smiling, at 250 East Seventy-eighth Street, where the Frohman family then lived. He had walked all the way up-town from the ferry. His first greeting to Gustave was:
"Well, when do we start again?"
III
PICTURESQUE DAYS AS MINSTREL MANAGER
I nstead of discouraging him, Charles Frohman's baptism of hardship with the John Dillon companies only filled him with a renewed ardor for the theatrical business. The hunger for the road was strong in him. Again it was Gustave who proved to be the good angel, and who now led him to a picturesque experience.
During the summer of 1878 J. H. (Jack) Haverly acquired the Callender Original Georgia Minstrels, and Gustave, who had an important hand in the negotiation, was retained as manager. He started for the Pacific coast with his dusky aggregation, and in Chicago fell in with his new employer.