The Salle Xavier, or Xavier Hall, had been built, with other people's money, by Xavier in order to force the general public to do something which the general public does not want to do and never would do of its own accord. Namely, to listen to high-class music. It had not been built, and it was not run, strange to say, to advertise a certain brand of piano. Xavier was an old Jew, of surpassing ugliness, from Cracow or some such place. He looked a rascal, and he was one--admittedly; he himself would imply it, if not crudely admit it. He had no personal interest in music, either high-class or low-class. But he possessed a gift for languages and he had mixed a great deal with musicians in an informal manner. Wagner, at Venice, had once threatened Xavier with a stick, and also Xavier had twice run away with great exponents of the rôle of Isolde. His competence as a connoisseur of Wagner's music, and of the proper methods of rendering Wagner's music, could therefore not be questioned, and it was not questioned. He had a habit of initiating grandiose schemes for opera or concerts and of obtaining money therefor from wealthy amateurs. After a few months he would return the money less ten per cent. for preliminary expenses and plus his regrets that the schemes had unhappily fallen through owing to unforeseen difficulties. And wealthy amateurs were so astonished to get ninety per cent. of their money back from a rascal that they thought him almost an honest man, asked him to dinner, and listened sympathetically to details of his next grandiose scheme. The Xavier Hall was one of the few schemes--and the only real estate scheme--that had ever gone through. With the hall for a centre, Xavier laid daily his plans and conspiracies for persuading the public against its will. To this end he employed in large numbers clerks, printers, bill posters, ticket agents, doorkeepers, programme writers, programme sellers, charwomen, and even artists. He always had some new dodge or hope. The hall was let several times a week for concerts or other entertainments, and many of them were private speculations of Xavier. They were nearly all failures. And the hall, thoroughly accustomed to seeing itself half empty, did not pay interest on its capital. How could it? Upon occasions there had actually been more persons in the orchestra than in the audience. Seated in the foyer, with one eye upon a shabby programme girl and another upon the street outside, Xavier would sometimes refer to these facts in conversation with a titled patron, and would describe the public realistically and without pretence of illusion. Nevertheless, Xavier had grown to be a rich man, for percentages were his hourly food; he received them even from programme sellers. At nine o'clock the hall was rather less than half full, and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the management, like the management of every place of distraction in Paris,