"Vous êtes Jules, n'est-ce pas?" (you are Jules, aren't you?) he questioned.
"Oui, M. Wilde."
"Here is the very boy you want," Oscar cried; "let's give him the tickets, and he'll sell them, and make something out of them," and Oscar turned and began to explain to the boy how I had given two hundred francs for the tickets, and how, even now, they should be worth a louis or two.
"Des jaunets" (yellow boys), cried the youth, his sharp face lighting up, and in a flash he had vanished with the tickets.
"You see he knows me, Frank," said Oscar, with the childish pleasure of gratified vanity.
"Yes," I replied drily, "not an acquaintance to be proud of, I should think."
"I don't agree with you, Frank," he said, resenting my tone, "did you notice his eyes? He is one of the most beautiful boys I have ever seen; an exact replica of Emilienne D'Alençon,[24] I call him Jules D'Alençon, and I tell her he must be her brother. I had them both dining with me once and the boy is finer than the girl, his skin far more beautiful.
"By the way," he went on, as we were walking up the Avenue de l'Opera, "why should we not see Emilienne; why should she not sup with us, and you could compare them? She is playing at Olympia, near the Grand Hotel. Let's go and compare Aspasia and Agathon, and for once I shall be Alcibiades, and you the moralist, Socrates."
"I would rather talk to you," I replied.
"We can talk afterwards, Frank, when all the stars come out to listen; now is the time to live and enjoy."