eight
o'clock
For Harrasford , who had as yet appointed no one as manager or stage-manager , the thing was to settle a program which would discourage any attempt at competition , to have none appearing except stars , without counting those whom he held in reserve for the following month , before distributing them over his variety-theaters in England , or , later , to any part of Europe , in the `` Great Powers Tour '' which he proposed to create and of which the Astrarium would be a sort of `` commodore '' music-hall , or headquarters . Jimmy only gave his opinion , after which Harrasford would decide . Harrasford 's dream was a model music-hall , something , in its own way , like the Grand Opéra in Paris : a palatial edifice , in a new style of architecture , with friezes displaying bodies in contortion , caryatids , cast from life , supporting the springers of the arches , mixed groups of loins and chests with swelling muscles , under the electric lights , and , in the lobbies , a lavish display of African onyx , Scotch granite and Russian porphyry . The crowd would pass in between Venus and Apollo , holding flowers and lights ; and there would be music everywhere ; gaiety , noise , red and gold everywhere ; all cares would be laid aside and forgotten on entering ; it would be a hall containing every modern convenience , like the Iroquois at Buffalo or a ` Frisco sky-scraper : newspapers , café , bars , smoking-room , barbers ' saloon , telegraph-office , telephone-office , messenger-boys , ticket-office , private rooms in which phonographs would shout out the latest news illustrated with telesteriography , from eight o'clock till midnight . The idea was to create , thirty years ahead of its time , the great popular music-hall , with its ball-rooms , as at Blackpool , its side-shows , a palm-garden , a roof-garden ; to draw to the theater those who , on getting up from dinner , go to the café and stay there ; to give them an atmosphere of mirth and jollity , of comforting lights , a sort of night forum , of People 's Palace , with , in the middle , in the sumptuous hall , facing the furnace that was the stage , a long thrill of three hours ' duration . And he would realize it next year , but he was in a hurry to open now , to plant his flag of victory : '' _ Faites vite ! Dépêchez _ ! ''