ng as that dry champagne with the exquisite
_bouquet_. You were the first to say my plays were the champagne of
literature."

When we came out it was three o'clock and I was tired and sleepy with my
journey, and Oscar had drunk perhaps more than was good for him. Knowing
how he hated walking I got a _voiture de cercle_ and told him to take
it, and I would walk to my hotel. He thanked me and seemed to hesitate.

"What is it now?" I asked, wanting to get to bed.

"Just a word with you," he said, and drew me away from the carriage
where the _chasseur_ was waiting with the rug. When he got me three or
four paces away he said, hesitatingly:

"Frank, could you ... can you let me have a few pounds? I'm very hard
up."

I stared at him; I had given him a cheque at the beginning of the
dinner: had he forgotten? Or did he perchance want to keep the hundred
pounds intact for some reason? Suddenly it occurred to me that he might
be without even enough for the carriage. I took out a hundred franc note
and gave it to him.

"Thank you, so much," he said, thrusting it into his waistcoat pocket,
"it's very kind of you."

"You will turn up to-morrow at lunch at one?" I said, as I put him into
the little brougham.

"Yes, of course, yes," he cried, and I turned away.

Next day at lunch he seemed to meet me with some embarrassment:

"Frank, I want to ask you something. I'm really confused about last
night; we dined most wisely, if too well. This morning I found you had
given me a cheque, and I found besides in my waistcoat pocket a note for
a hundred francs. Did I ask you for it at the end? 'Tap' you, the French
call it," he added, trying to laugh.

I nodded.

"How dreadful!" he cried. "How dreadful poverty is! I had forgotten that
you had given me a cheque, and I was so hard up, so afraid you might go
away without giving me anything, that I asked you for it. Isn't poverty
dreadful?"

I nodded; I could not say a word: the fact told so much.

The chastened mood of self-condemnation did not last long with him or go
deep; soon he was talking as merrily and gaily as ever.

Before parting I said to him:

"You won't forget that you are going on Thursday night?"

"Oh, really!" he cried, to my surprise, "Thursday is very near; I don't
know whether I shall be able to come."

"What on earth do you mean?" I asked.

"The truth is, you know, I have debts to pay, and I have not enough."

"But I will give you more," I cried, "what