“Tell me the name of one of your books, please.”
I shook my head.
“Can’t. Not allowed.”
“Not allowed? Why not?”
“Because,” I answered, rattling off the first nonsense which came to my head, “I’m a member of the famous ‘Silence Club,’ the members of which are known as the W.N.T.S.’s. You have heard of the club of course, even if you haven’t heard of me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I feel sure I have; but I was never quite sure what it meant. What does W.N.T.S. stand for?”
“It means ‘We Never Talk Shop.’ An author who so much as mentions the title of his book except to his publisher, his bookseller, or an agent is unconditionally expelled.”
Then I delivered my counter-attack. He had mentioned to Wilde that he hailed from Boston. It so happens that at my friend Louise Chandler Moulton’s receptions I had met nearly every eminent Boston or even American author, so I put a few questions to my interviewer which showed an inner knowledge of Boston and American literary life and celebrities that seemed positively to startle him. He was now convinced that I was a celebrity of world-wide fame, and that such a comet should come within his own orbit, without his getting to know as much as the comet’s name, was not to be endured by a self-respecting journalist. He literally agonised, as well as perspired, in his unavailing efforts to trick, wheedle or implore my obscure name from me. For one moment I was minded to tell him my name if only to enjoy the shock of its unknownness, but I resisted the temptation and, tiring in my turn as Wilde had tired, I rose and said that as I was getting off at the next stopping place I would wish him “Good day.” He did not even ask for John Brown’s autograph. He even seemed suddenly in a hurry to get rid of me, the reason for which I afterwards discovered. He had, I suppose, heard me tell Wilde that my luggage was on board; and the last I saw of him was in the boat’s hold, where he was stooping, pince-nez on nose, over the up-piled bags, boxes, dressing-cases and trunks, painfully raking them over, and every moment hoping to be rewarded by finding mine labelled “Robert Louis Stevenson,” “Rudyard Kipling,” “Algernon C. Swinburne” or “Thomas Hardy.” I trust he found it.
When we were back in town I told Wilde my own adventure with the interviewer after the former had left the boat. His comment was:
“It sounds like a terrible serial story that I once saw in a magazine, each chapter of which was written by a different hand. ‘The Adventures of Oscar Wilde, by himself, continued by Coulson Kernahan.’ How positively dreadful!”