"What shall we drink?" I asked.
"The same champagne, Frank, don't you think?" he said, pulling his jowl; "there is no wine so inspiring as that dry champagne with the exquisite bouquet. You were the first to say my plays were the champagne of literature."
When we came out it was three o'clock and I was tired and sleepy with my journey, and Oscar had drunk perhaps more than was good for him. Knowing how he hated walking I got a voiture de cercle and told him to take it, and I would walk to my hotel. He thanked me and seemed to hesitate.
"What is it now?" I asked, wanting to get to bed.
"Just a word with you," he said, and drew me away from the carriage where the chasseur was waiting with the rug. When he got me three or four paces away he said, hesitatingly:
"Frank, could you ... can you let me have a few pounds? I'm very hard up."
I stared at him; I had given him a cheque at the beginning of the dinner: had he forgotten? Or did he perchance want to keep the hundred pounds intact for some reason? Suddenly it occurred to me that he might be without even enough for the carriage. I took out a hundred franc note and gave it to him.
"Thank you, so much," he said, thrusting it into his waistcoat pocket, "it's very kind of you."
"You will turn up to-morrow at lunch at one?" I said, as I put him into the little brougham.
"Yes, of course, yes," he cried, and I turned away.