Oscar was surrounded by friends congratulating him and rejoicing.
I was not so happy and went away to think the matter out.

I tried to keep up my courage by recalling the humorous things Oscar had said during the cross-examination.

I recalled too the dull commonplaces of Mr.Carson.I tried to persuade myself that it was all going on very well.

But in the back of my mind I realised that Oscar's answers, characteristic and clever as many of them were, had not impressed the jury, were indeed rather calculated to alienate them.

He had taken the purely artistic standpoint, had not attempted to go higher and reach a synthesis which would conciliate the Philistine jurymen as well as the thinking public, and the Judge.
Mr.Carson was in closer touch with the jury, being nearer their intellectual level, and there was a terrible menace in his last words.
To-morrow, I said to myself, he will begin to examine about persons and not books.