“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!”
I wonder what Wilde will have to say to me, if hereafter we should
discuss together the brief and fragmentary continuation of his own
story which in these Recollections I have endeavoured to carry on?