ven bail;
the detective replied:

"That is a question for the magistrate."

Oscar then rose and asked, "Where shall I be taken?"

"To Bow Street," was the reply.

As he picked up a copy of the Yellow Book and groped for his overcoat,
they all noticed that he was "very drunk" though still perfectly
conscious of what he was doing.

He asked Ross to go to Tite Street and get him a change of clothes and
bring them to Bow Street. The two detectives took him away in a
four-wheeler, leaving Ross and Turner on the curb.

Ross hurried to Tite Street. He found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had gone
to the house of a relative and there was only Wilde's man servant,
Arthur, in the house, who afterwards went out of his mind, and is
still, it is said, in an asylum. He had an intense affection for
Oscar. Ross found that Mrs. Oscar Wilde had locked up Oscar's bedroom
and study. He burst open the bedroom door and, with the help of
Arthur, packed up a change of things. He then hurried to Bow Street,
where he found a howling mob shouting indecencies. He was informed by
an inspector that it was impossible to see Wilde or to leave any
clothes for him.

Ross returned at once to Tite Street, forced open the library door and
removed a certain number of letters and manuscripts of Wilde's; but
unluckily he couldn't find the two MSS. which he knew had been
returned to Tite Street two days before, namely, "A Florentine
Tragedy" and the enlarged version of "The Portrait of Mr. W.H."

Ross then drove to his mother's and collapsed. Mrs. Ross insisted that
he should go abroad, and in order to induce him to do it gave L500 for
Oscar's defence. Ross went to the Terminus Hotel at Calais, where
Bosie Douglas joined him a little later. They both stayed there while
Oscar was being tried before Mr. Justice Charles and one day George
Wyndham crossed the Channel to see Bosie Douglas.

There is of course some excuse to be made for the chief actor. Oscar
was physically tired and morally broken. He had pulled the fair
building of reputation and success down upon his own head, and, with
the "booing" of the mob still in his ears, he could think of nothing
but the lost hours when he ought to have used his money to take him
beyond the reach of his pursuers.

His enemies, on the other hand, had acted with the utmost promptitude.
Lord Queensberry's solicitor, Mr. Charles Russell, had stated that it
was not his client's intention to take the initiative in any crimi