I remember a lunch once when he talked most brilliantly and finished up by
telling the story now published in his works as "A Florentine Tragedy." He
told it superbly, making it appear far more effective than in its written form.
A well-known actor, piqued at being compelled to play listener, made himself
ridiculous by half turning his back on the narrator. But after lunch Willie
Grenfell (now Lord Desborough), a model English athlete gifted with peculiar
intellectual fairness, came round to me:

"Oscar Wilde is most surprising, most charming, a wonderful talker."

At the same moment Mr. K. H---- came over to us. He was a man who went
everywhere and knew everyone. He had quiet, ingratiating manners, always spoke
in a gentle smiling way and had a good word to say for everyone, especially for
women; he was a bachelor, too, and wholly unattached. He surprised me by taking
up Grenfell's praise and breaking into a lyric:

"The best talker who ever lived," he said; "most extraordinary. I am so
infinitely obliged to you for asking me to meet him--a new delight. He brings a
supernal air into life. I am in truth indebted to you"--all this in an affected
purring tone. I noticed for the first time that there was a touch of rouge on
his face; Grenfell turned away from us rather abruptly I thought.

At this first roseate dawn of complete success and universal applause, new
qualities came to view in Oscar. Praise gave him the fillip needed in order
to make him surpass himself. His talk took on a sort of autumnal richness
of colour, and assumed a new width of range; he now used pathos as well as
humour and generally brought in a story or apologue to lend variety to the
entertainment. His little weaknesses, too, began to show themselves and they
grew rankly in the sunshine. He always wanted to do himself well, as the phrase
goes, but now he began to eat and drink more freely than before. His vanity