ked him could I charter
it?

"Certainly," he replied, "and I will let you have it for the bare cost
for the next month or two."

"One month will do for me," I said.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

I don't know why, but a thought came into my head: I would tell him
the truth, and see what he would say. I took him aside and told him
the bare facts. At once he declared that the yacht was at my service
for such work as that without money: he would be too glad to lend it
to me: it was horrible that such a man as Wilde should be treated as a
common criminal.

He felt as Henry VIII felt in Shakespeare's play of that name:

"... there's some of ye, I see,
More out of malice than integrity,
Would try him to the utmost, ..."

It was not the generosity in my friend's offer that astonished me, but
the consideration for Wilde; I thought the lenity so singular in
England that I feel compelled to explain it. Though an Englishman born
and bred my friend was by race a Jew--a man of the widest culture, who
had no sympathy whatever with the vice attributed to Oscar. Feeling
consoled because there was at least one generous, kind heart in the
world, I went next day to Willie Wilde's house in Oakley Street to see
Oscar. I had written to him on the previous evening that I was coming
to take Oscar out to lunch.

Willie Wilde met me at the door; he was much excited apparently by the
notoriety attaching to Oscar; he was volubly eager to tell me that,
though we had not been friends, yet my support of Oscar was most
friendly and he would therefore bury the hatchet. He had never
interested me, and I was unconscious of any hatchet and careless
whether he buried it or blessed it. I repeated drily that I had come
to take Oscar to lunch.

"I know you have," he said, "and it's most kind of you; but he can't
go."

"Why not?" I asked as I went in.

Oscar was gloomy, depressed, and evidently suffering. Willie's
theatrical insincerity had annoyed me a little, and I was eager to get
away. Suddenly I saw Sherard, who has since done his best for Oscar's
memory. In his book there is a record of this visit of mine. He was
standing silently by the wall.

"I've come to take you to lunch," I said to Oscar.

"But he cannot go out," cried Willie.

"Of course he can," I insisted, "I've come to take him."

"But where to?" asked Willie.

"Yes, Frank, where to?" repeated Oscar meekly.

"Anywhere you like," I said, "the Savoy if you