But, whatever the Baron’s motives may have been, Londoners owe him a considerable debt of gratitude in respect of the transformation of the most disreputable public square in all Europe. At no time has London shown itself over-anxious to acknowledge the obligation, and to-day it has probably forgotten all about its dead benefactor. I knew the Baron quite well. He was a dapper, well-groomed, ambitious little man. Had the tide not turned and swept him off his feet, he would have gained admission to the House of Commons—one of the few associations of English gentlemen by whom promoters of the Baron Grant type are not merely tolerated, but even made welcome. Amid the filth and squalor of the un-reformed square the high edifice of the Alhambra rose, giving the absent touch of the Orient to a locality sheltering many swarthy sons of the East. And there was something Oriental in the entertainment, the chief feature of which was ballet. In the seventies, and before the coming of the Empire and kindred palaces, every man-about-town dropped in at the Alhambra at least once during the week. He was sure to find himself among friends. And in case that did not happen, he had offered to him the easy opportunity of picking one up. The establishment was owned by a company, the principal managing directors being a bill-poster called Nagle, a friend of Nagle’s called Sutton, and Captain Fryer, a wine-merchant in the City. Fryer had married the old Strand favourite, Bella Goodall, and was a member of the Junior Garrick and other theatrical clubs, in one of which I first made his acquaintance. John Baum was the manager, and the hard-working and inimitable Jacobi was _chef d’orchestra_. John Baum, the manager, presented to the ordinary observer rather an interesting problem. He was at once manager of the Alhambra, lessee of Cremorne, and the owner of a glove-shop in Piccadilly, situated on or about, the spot on which the fountain now stands; for at that time the open space which spreads itself before the Criterion was covered by a triangular block of buildings, the back of which faced the London Pavilion, which then stood close by the Café Monico and a nasty anatomical exhibition known as Dr. Kahn’s Museum. The exhibitor eked out a bare existence by pandering to the prurient, and was at last compelled by the authorities to close his unspeakably sorry show. But I must not side-track Baum in describing his surroundings. He was a little, fair-haired person with a rotund figure. He invariably appeared in public in a tall hat, a black frock-coat, and a narrow black tie, carefully fastened in a bow. But for a scrubby moustache, he looked far more like a Dissenting parson than like a music-hall manager. No one could have inferred from his personal appearance that he could be in any way connected with two such establishments as the Alhambra and Cremorne.