Immediately he asked him to lunch at the Grange, chuckling to himself beforehand at the sensational novelty of the experiment.

Next day "Mr.Oscar Wilde" was announced and as he came into the room the sportsmen forthwith began hiding themselves behind newspapers or moving together in groups in order to avoid seeing or being introduced to the notorious writer.

Oscar shook hands with his host as if he had noticed nothing, and began to talk.
"In five minutes," Grimthorpe declares, "all the papers were put down and everyone had gathered round him to listen and laugh." At the end of the meal one Yorkshireman after the other begged the host to follow the lunch with a dinner and invite them to meet the wonder again.

When the party broke up in the small hours they all went away delighted with Oscar, vowing that no man ever talked more brilliantly.

Grimthorpe cannot remember a single word Oscar said: "It was all delightful," he declares, "a play of genial humour over every topic that came up, like sunshine dancing on waves." The extraordinary thing about Oscar's talent was that he did not monopolise the conversation: he took the ball of talk wherever it happened to be at the moment and played with it so humorously that everyone was soon smiling delightedly.