After four warmup performances in New Haven, Connecticut,[2][3][4][5] the play debuted on Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre on August 30, 1897.

[20] Charles Arnold starred in this production, and then successfully took it abroad, including to Australia and South Africa.

The Sun wrote that "there was nothing ingeniously novel in the design of the piece, nor any particularly bright wit or unctuous humor," but it "should not be underrated as a farce of the uproarious kind.

"[9] The New York Times found it "an exceedingly artificial piece in which the artifice is plainly apparent from first to last to the critical playgoer, who finds in it some really funny passages, and many others which are almost depressing in spite of the hard labor of the performers."

Of George C. Boniface, Jr.'s performance as Jones, the Times said he "has a droll and quizzical personality, but he has been too busily employed in Mr. Hoyt's farces and comic opera to learn to act.