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.