When people asked, 'What has Frank Harris been ?' the usual reply was, 'Obviously a pirate from the Spanish Main.' "Oscar, from the moment he gained your attachment, could never have been afraid of what you might do to him, as he was sufficient of a connoisseur in Blut Bruderschaft to appreciate yours; but he must always have been mortally afraid of what you might do or say to his friends.[9] [Footnote 9: This insight on Shaw's part makes me smile because it is absolutely true.

Oscar commended Bosie Douglas to me again and again and again, begged me to be nice to him if we ever met by chance; but I refused to meet him for months and months.] "You had quite an infernal scorn for nineteen out of twenty of the men and women you met in the circles he most wished to propitiate; and nothing could induce you to keep your knife in its sheath when they jarred on you.

The Spanish Main itself would have blushed rosy red at your language when classical invective did not suffice to express your feelings.
"It may be that if, say, Edmund Gosse had come to Oscar when he was out on bail, with a couple of first class tickets in his pocket, and gently suggested a mild trip to Folkestone, or the Channel Islands, Oscar might have let himself be coaxed away.

But to be called on to gallop _ventre a terre_ to Erith--it might have been Deal--and hoist the Jolly Roger on board your lugger, was like casting a light comedian and first lover for _Richard III_.

Oscar could not see himself in the part.
"I must not press the point too far; but it illustrates, I think, what does not come out at all in your book: that you were a very different person from the submissive and sympathetic disciples to whom he was accustomed.