you which you have not touched on yet: Gill asked you what you had in
common with those serving-men and stable boys. You have not explained
that. You have explained that you love youth, the brightness and the
gaiety of it, but you have not explained what seems inexplicable to
most men, that you should go about with servants and strappers."

"Difficult to explain, Frank, isn't it, without the truth?" Evidently
his mind was not working.

"No," I replied, "easy, simple. Think of Shakespeare. How did he know
Dogberry and Pistol, Bardolph and Doll Tearsheet? He must have gone
about with them. You don't go about with public school boys of your
own class, for you know them; you have nothing to learn from them:
they can teach you nothing. But the stable boy and servant you cannot
sketch in your plays without knowing him, and you can't know him
without getting on his level, and letting him call you 'Oscar' and
calling him 'Charlie.' If you rub this in, the judge will see that he
is face to face with the artist in you and will admit at least that
your explanation is plausible. He will hesitate to condemn you, and
once he hesitates you'll win.

"You fought badly because you did not show your own nature
sufficiently; you did not use your brains in the witness box and
alas--" I did not continue; the truth was I was filled with fear; for
I suddenly realised that he had shown more courage and self-possession
in the Queensberry trial than in the trial before Mr. Justice Charles
when so much more was at stake; and I felt that in the next trial he
would be more depressed still, and less inclined to take the
initiative than ever. I had already learned too that I could not help
him; that he would not be lifted out of that "sweet way of despair,"
which so attracts the artist spirit. But still I would do my best.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

"Of course, Frank, of course, but you have no conception how weary I
am of the whole thing, of the shame and the struggling and the hatred.
To see those people coming into the box one after the other to witness
against me makes me sick. The self-satisfied grin of the barristers,
the pompous foolish judge with his thin lips and cunning eyes and hard
jaw. Oh, it's terrible. I feel inclined to stretch out my hands and
cry to them, 'Do what you will with me, in God's name, only do it
quickly; cannot you see that I am worn out? If hatred gives you
pleasure, indulge it.' They worry one, Frank, with rav