"Did you visit him one night at 12:30 at Park Walk, Chelsea?"
"I did not."
"Did you write him any beautiful prose-poems?"
"I don"t think so."
"Did you know that Charlie Parker had enlisted in the Army?"
"I have heard so."
"When you heard that Taylor was arrested what did you do?"
"I was greatly distressed and wrote to tell him so."
"When did you first meet Fred Atkins?"
"In October or November, "92."
"Did he tell you that he was employed by a firm of bookmakers?"
"He may have done."
"Not a literary man or an artist, was he?"
"No."
"What age was he?"
"Nineteen or twenty."
"Did you ask him to dinner at Kettner"s?"
"I think I met him at a dinner at Kettner"s."
"Was Taylor at the dinner?"
"He may have been."
"Did you meet him afterwards?"
"I did."
"Did you call him "Fred" and let him call you "Oscar"?"
"Yes."
"Did you go to Paris with him?"
"Yes."
"Did you give him money?"
"Yes."
"Was there ever any impropriety between you?"
"No."
"When did you first meet Ernest Scarfe?"
"In December, 1893."
"Who introduced him to you?"
"Taylor."
"Scarfe was out of work, was he not?"
"He may have been."
"Did Taylor bring Scarfe to you at St. James"s Place?"
"Yes."
"Did you give Scarfe a cigarette case?"
"Yes: it was my custom to give cigarette cases to people I liked."
"When did you first meet Mavor?"
"In "93."
"Did you give him money or a cigarette case?"
"A cigarette case."
"Did you know Walter Grainger?"... and so on till the very air in the court seemed peopled with spectres.
On the whole Oscar bore the cross-examination very well; but he made one appalling slip.
Mr. Carson was pressing him as to his relations with the boy Grainger, who had been employed in Lord Alfred Douglas" rooms in Oxford.
"Did you ever kiss him?" he asked.
Oscar answered carelessly, "Oh, dear, no. He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was, unfortunately, extremely ugly. I pitied him for it."
"Was that the reason why you did not kiss him?"