sperate fight, and curiosity as to
the issue.

A little later I received a letter from Oscar, asking me if he could
call on me that afternoon. I stayed in, and about four o'clock he came
to see me.

At first he used the old imperious mask, which he had lately
accustomed himself to wear.

"I am bringing an action against Queensberry, Frank," he began
gravely, "for criminal libel. He is a mere wild beast. My solicitors
tell me that I am certain to win. But they say some of the things I
have written will be brought up against me in court. Now you know all
I have written. Would you in your position as editor of _The
Fortnightly_ come and give evidence for me, testify for instance that
'Dorian Gray' is not immoral?"

"Yes," I replied at once, "I should be perfectly willing, and I could
say more than that; I could say that you are one of the very few men I
have ever known whose talk and whose writings were vowed away from
grossness of any sort."

"Oh! Frank, would you? It would be so kind of you," he cried out. "My
solicitors said I ought to ask you, but they were afraid you would not
like to come: your evidence will win the case. It is good of you." His
whole face was shaken; he turned away to hide the tears.

"Anything I can do, Oscar," I said, "I shall do with pleasure, and, as
you know, to the uttermost; but I want you to consider the matter
carefully. An English court of law gives me no assurance of a fair
trial or rather I am certain that in matters of art or morality an
English court is about the worst tribunal in the civilised world."

He shook his head impatiently.

"I cannot help it, I cannot alter it," he said.

"You must listen to me," I insisted. "You remember the Whistler and
Ruskin action. You know that Whistler ought to have won. You know that
Ruskin was shamelessly in fault; but the British jury and the
so-called British artists treated Whistler and his superb work with
contempt. Take a different case altogether, the Belt case, where all
the Academicians went into the witness box, and asserted honestly
enough that Belt was an impostor, yet the jury gave him a verdict of
L5,000, though a year later he was sent to penal servitude for the
very frauds which the jury in the first trial had declared by their
verdict he had not committed. An English law court is all very well
for two average men, who are fighting an ordinary business dispute.
That's what it's made for, but to judge a Whistler or the abil