“‘I don’t know who has been telling you all these silly stories,’ I replied, ‘but they are untrue and quite ridiculous.’

“He ended up by saying that if he caught me and his son together again he would thrash me.

“‘I don’t know what the Queensberry rules are,’ I retorted, ’but my rule is to shoot at sight in case of personal violence,’ and with that I told him to leave my house.”

“Of course he defied you?” I questioned.

“He was rude, Frank, and preposterous to the end.”

As Oscar was telling me the story, it seemed to me as if another person were speaking through his mouth.  The idea of Oscar “standing up” to Queensberry or “shooting at sight” was too absurd.  Who was inspiring him?  Alfred Douglas?

“What has happened since?” I enquired.

“Nothing,” he replied, “perhaps he will be quiet now.  Bosie has written him a terrible letter; he must see now that, if he goes on, he will only injure his own flesh and blood.”

“That won’t stop him,” I replied, “if I read him aright.  But if I could see what Alfred Douglas wrote, I should be better able to judge of the effect it will have on Queensberry.”

A little later I saw the letter:  it shows better than words of mine the tempers of the chief actors in this squalid story: 

“As you return my letters unopened, I am obliged to write on a postcard.  I write to inform you that I treat your absurd threats with absolute indifference.  Ever since your exhibition at O.W.’s house, I have made a point of appearing with him at many public restaurants such as The Berkeley, Willis’s Rooms, the Cafe Royal, etc., and I shall continue to go to any of these places whenever I choose and with whom I choose.  I am of age and my own master.  You have disowned me at least a dozen times, and have very meanly deprived me of money.  You have therefore no right over me, either legal or moral.  If O.W. was to prosecute you in the Central Criminal Court for libel, you would get seven years’ penal servitude for your outrageous libels.  Much as I detest you, I am anxious to avoid this for the sake of the family; but if you try to assault me, I shall defend myself with a loaded revolver, which I always carry; and if I shoot you or if he shoots you, we shall be completely justified, as we shall be acting in self-defence against a violent and dangerous rough, and I think if you were dead many people would not miss you.—­A.D.”

This letter of the son seemed to me appalling.  My guess was right; it was he who was speaking through Oscar; the threat of shooting at sight came from him.  I did not then understand all the circumstances; I had not met Lady Queensberry.  I could not have imagined how she had suffered at the hands of her husband—­a charming, cultivated woman, with exquisite taste in literature and art; a woman of the most delicate, aspen-like sensibilities and noble generosities, coupled with that violent, coarse animal