The Quartet was played twice by Böhm and his fellows at a morning concert in a coffee-house in the Prater, late in March or early in April, and was enthusiastically received. Steiner, who had attended one or more of the rehearsals, was particularly enraptured by it and at once offered to buy it for publication for 60 ducats--a fact which Beethoven did not fail to report to Schott and Sons when he sent the manuscript to them. Subsequently Mayseder also played it at a private concert in the house of Dembscher, an official or agent of the war department of the Austrian Government, and this performance Holz described as a _réparation d’honneur_. Beethoven was now completely satisfied and, no doubt, went to work on its successor with a contented mind. [Sidenote: KARL HOLZ SUPPLANTS SCHINDLER] It is now become necessary to pay attention to the new friend of Beethoven whose name has been mentioned--the successor of Schindler, as he had been of Oliva, in the office of factotum in ordinary. This was Karl Holz, a young man (he was born in 1798) who occupied a post in the States’ Chancellary of Lower Austria. He had studied music with Glöggl in Linz and was so capable a violinist that, on Schuppanzigh’s return from Russia in 1823, he became second in the latter’s quartet. He seems to have come into closer contact with Beethoven early in the spring of 1825, probably when, having to conduct a performance of the B-flat Symphony at a concert in the Ridotto Room, he asked an audience of the composer in order that he might get the _tempi_ for that work. Though not a professional musician, he gave music lessons, later occasionally conducted the _Concerts spirituels_ and eventually became the regular director of these affairs. Emboldened by the kindness with which he was first received he gradually drew nearer to the composer and in August, 1825, an intimate friendship seems imminent, as is indicated by Beethoven’s remark in a letter to his nephew: “It seems as if Holz might become a friend.” He was good at figures, a quality which made him particularly serviceable to Beethoven (who was woefully deficient in arithmetic)[127] at a time when he was dealing with foreign publishers and there was great confusion in money values and rates of exchange. He was also a well-read man, a clever talker, musically cultured, a cheery companion, and altogether an engaging person. All these qualities, no less than the fact that he was strong and independent in his convictions and fearless in his proclamation of them, recommended him to Beethoven, and he does not seem to have hesitated to take advantage of the fact that he entered the inner circle of Beethoven’s companions at a time when the composer had begun to feel a growing antipathy to Schindler. He promptly embraced the opportunity which his willing usefulness brought him, to draw close to the great man, to learn of him and also to exhibit himself to the world as his confidential friend.