ine the cicatrice from time to time, pretending to
note the speed with which it was disappearing. Some time in '60 or '61
Miss Travers had a corn on the sole of her foot which gave her some
pain. Dr. Wilde did her the honour of paring the corn with his own
hands and painting it with iodine. The cunning Serjeant could not help
saying with some confusion, natural or assumed, "that it would have
been just as well--at least there are men of such temperament that it
would be dangerous to have such a manipulation going on." The
spectators in the court smiled, feeling that in "manipulation" the
Serjeant had found the most neatly suggestive word.

Naturally at this point Serjeant Sullivan interfered in order to stem
the rising tide of interest and to blunt the point of the accusation.
Sir William Wilde, he said, was not the man to shrink from any
investigation: but he was only in the case formally and he could not
meet the allegations, which therefore were "one-sided and unfair" and
so forth and so on.

After the necessary pause, Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight
and proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this
time, in which he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot,
but to rest it for a few days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal
position while reading a pleasant book. If she would send in, he would
try and send her one.

"I have now," concluded the Serjeant, like an actor carefully
preparing his effect, "traced this friendly intimacy down to a point
where it begins to be dangerous: I do not wish to aggravate the
gravity of the charge in the slightest by any rhetoric or by an
unconscious over-statement; you shall therefore, gentlemen of the
jury, hear from Miss Travers herself what took place between her and
Dr. Wilde and what she complains of."

Miss Travers then went into the witness-box. Though thin and past her
first youth, she was still pretty in a conventional way, with regular
features and dark eyes. She was examined by Mr. Butt, Q.C. After
confirming point by point what Serjeant Armstrong had said, she went
on to tell the jury that in the summer of '62 she had thought of going
to Australia, where her two brothers lived, who wanted her to come out
to them. Dr. Wilde lent her L40 to go, but told her she must say it
was L20 or her father might think the sum too large. She missed the
ship in London and came back. She was anxious to impress on the jury
the fact that she had