“The innocent,” he said, “always suffer, M. le Commandant; it is their metier.  Besides, we are all innocent till we are found out; it is a poor, common part to play and within the compass of the meanest.  The interesting thing surely is to be guilty and so wear as a halo the seduction of sin.”

Esterhazy appeared put out for a moment, and then he caught the genial gaiety of the reproof and the hint contained in it.  His vanity would not allow him to remain long in a secondary role, and so, to our amazement, he suddenly broke out: 

“Why should I not make my confession to you?  I will.  It is I, Esterhazy, who alone am guilty.  I wrote the bordereau.  I put Dreyfus in prison, and all France can not liberate him.  I am the maker of the plot, and the chief part in it is mine.”

To his surprise we both roared with laughter.  The influence of the larger nature on the smaller to such an extraordinary issue was irresistibly comic.  At the time no one even suspected Esterhazy in connection with the bordereau.

Another example, this time of Oscar’s wit, may find a place here.  Sir Lewis Morris was a voluminous poetaster with a common mind.  He once bored Oscar by complaining that his books were boycotted by the press; after giving several instances of unfair treatment he burst out:  “There’s a conspiracy against me, a conspiracy of silence; but what can one do?  What should I do?”

“Join it,” replied Oscar smiling.

Oscar’s humour was for the most part intellectual, and something like it can be found in others, though the happy fecundity and lightsome gaiety of it belonged to the individual temperament and perished with him.  I remember once trying to give an idea of the different sides of his humour, just to see how far it could be imitated.

I made believe to have met him at Paddington, after his release from Reading, though he was brought to Pentonville in private clothes by a warder on May 18th, and was released early the next morning, two years to the hour from the commencement of the Sessions at which he was convicted on May 25th.  The Act says that you must be released from the prison in which you are first confined.  I pretended, however, that I had met him.  The train, I said, ran into Paddington Station early in the morning.  I went across to him as he got out of the carriage:  grey dawn filled the vast echoing space; a few porters could be seen scattered about; it was all chill and depressing.

“Welcome, welcome, Oscar!” I cried holding out my hands.  “I am sorry I’m alone.  You ought to have been met by troops of boys and girls flower-crowned, but alas! you will have to content yourself with one middle-aged admirer.”

“Yes, it’s really terrible, Frank,” he replied gravely.  “If England persists in treating her criminals like this, she does not deserve to have any....”

“Ah,” said an old lady to him one day at lunch, “I know you people who pretend to be a great deal worse than you are, I know you.  I shouldn’t be afraid of you.”