together, I believe with 'Dodo' Denson. Naturally Bosie talked a great deal
about me and Hichens wanted to know me. When they returned to town, I thought
him rather pleasant, and saw a good deal of him. I had no idea that he was
going to play reporter; it seems to me a breach of confidence--ignoble."

"It is not a picture of you," I said, "but there is a certain likeness."

"A photograph is always like and unlike, Frank," he replied; "the sun too, when
used mechanically, is merely a reporter, and traduces instead of reproducing
you."

"The Green Carnation" ruined Oscar Wilde's character with the general public.
On all sides the book was referred to as confirming the worst suspicions: the
cloud which hung over him grew continually darker.

During the summer of 1894 he wrote the "Ideal Husband," which was the outcome of
a story I had told him. I had heard it from an American I had met in Cairo, a
Mr. Cope Whitehouse. He told me that Disraeli had made money by entrusting the
Rothschilds with the purchase of the Suez Canal shares. It seemed to me strange
that this statement, if true, had never been set forth authoritatively; but the
story was peculiarly modern, and had possibilities in it. Oscar admitted
afterwards that he had taken the idea and used it in "An Ideal Husband."

It was in this summer also that he wrote "The Importance of Being Earnest," his
finest play. He went to the seaside and completed it, he said, in three weeks,
and, when I spoke of the delight he must feel at having two plays performed in
London at the same time, he said:

"Next year, Frank, I may have four or five; I could write one every two months
with the greatest ease. It all depends on money. If I need money I shall write