For the first time since I had known him he borrowed heedlessly right and left, and had, therefore, to bring forth play after play with scant time for thought.
Lord Alfred Douglas has declared recently: "I spent much more in entertaining Oscar Wilde than he did in entertaining me"; but this is preposterous self-deception.

An earlier confession of his was much nearer the truth: "It was a sweet humiliation to me to let Oscar Wilde pay for everything and to ask him for money." There can be no doubt that Lord Alfred Douglas' habitual extravagance kept Oscar Wilde hard up, and drove him to write without intermission.
There were other and worse results of the intimacy which need not be exposed here in so many words, though they must be indicated; for they derived of necessity from that increased self-assurance which has already been recorded.

As Oscar devoted himself to Lord Alfred Douglas and went about with him continually, he came to know his friends and his familiars, and went less into society so-called.

Again and again Lord Alfred Douglas flaunted acquaintance with youths of the lowest class; but no one knew him or paid much attention to him; Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, was already a famous personage whose every movement provoked comment.

From this time on the rumours about Oscar took definite form and shaped themselves in specific accusations: his enemies began triumphantly to predict his ruin and disgrace.
Everything is known in London society; like water on sand the truth spreads wider and wider as it gradually filters lower.