I thought he was still developing; and I hazarded the unhappy guess that 'The Importance of Being Earnest' was in idea a young work written or projected long before under the influence of Gilbert and furbished up for Alexander as a potboiler.

At the Cafe Royal that day I calmly asked him whether I was not right.

He indignantly repudiated my guess, and said loftily (the only time he ever tried on me the attitude he took to John Gray and his more abject disciples) that he was disappointed in me.

I suppose I said, 'Then what on earth has happened to you ?' but I recollect nothing more on that subject except that we did not quarrel over it.
"When he was sentenced I spent a railway journey on a Socialist lecturing excursion to the North drafting a petition for his release.
After that I met Willie Wilde at a theatre which I think must have been the Duke of York's, because I connect it vaguely with St.
Martin's Lane.

I spoke to him about the petition, asking him whether anything of the sort was being done, and warning him that though I and Stewart Headlam would sign it, that would be no use, as we were two notorious cranks, and our names would by themselves reduce the petition to absurdity and do Oscar more harm than good.