9 P.M.
Along the length of all the principal boulevards , and in many of the lesser streets , the ingenuous stranger encountered , at regular distances of a couple of hundred yards or so , one of these columns planted on the kerb ; and all the scores of them bore exactly the same legend ; they all spoke of nothing but blissful diversions , and they all put Musa ahead of anybody else in the world of the stage and the platform . Sarah Bernhardt herself , dark blue upon pale , was a trifle compared to Musa on the columns . And it had been so for days . Other posters were changed daily -- changed by mysterious hands before even bread-girls were afoot with their yards of bread -- but the space given to Musa repeated always the same tidings , namely that Musa -LRB- `` the great violinist '' -RRB- was to give an orchestral concert at the Salle Xavier , assisted by the Xavier orchestra , on Thursday , September 24 , at 9 P.M. Particulars of the programme followed . Paris was being familiarised with Musa . His four letters looked down upon the fever of the thoroughfares ; they were perused by tens of thousands of sitters in cafés and in front of cafés ; they caught the eye of men and women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs ; they competed successfully with newspaper placards ; and on that Thursday -- for the Thursday in question had already run more than half its course -- they had so entered into the sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitué of the streets , whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music , could have failed to reply with knowledge , on hearing Musa mentioned , `` Oh , yes ! '' implying that he was fully acquainted with the existence of the said Musa .