Mr. Carson was in closer touch with the jury, being nearer their intellectual level, and there was a terrible menace in his last words. To-morrow, I said to myself, he will begin to examine about persons and not books. He did not win on the literary question, but he was right to bring it in. The passages he had quoted, and especially Oscar's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, had created a strong prejudice in the minds of the jury. They ought not to have had this effect, I thought, but they had. My contempt for Courts of law deepened: those twelve jurymen were anything but the peers of the accused: how could they judge him?
The second day of the trial was very different from the first. There seemed to be a gloom over the Court. Oscar went into the box as if it had been the dock; he had lost all his spring. Mr. Carson settled down to the cross-examination with apparent zest. It was evident from his mere manner that he was coming to what he regarded as the strong part of his case. He began by examining Oscar as to his intimacy with a person named Taylor.
"Has Taylor been to your house and to your chambers?"
"Have you been to Taylor's rooms to afternoon tea parties?"
"Did Taylor's rooms strike you as peculiar?"
"Have you ever seen them lit by anything else but candles even in the day time?"
"Have you ever met there a young man called Wood?"
"Have you ever met Sidney Mavor there at tea?"
"Taylor was a friend, a young man of intelligence and education: he had been to a good English school."
"Did you know Taylor was being watched by the police?"
"Did you know that Taylor was arrested with a man named Parker in a raid made last year on a house in Fitzroy Square?"
"Did that cause you to drop your acquaintance with Taylor?"
"No; Taylor explained to me that he had gone there to a dance, and that the magistrate had dismissed the case against him."
"Did you get Taylor to arrange dinners for you to meet young men?"
"No; I have dined with Taylor at a restaurant."
"How many young men has Taylor introduced to you?"
"Did you give money or presents to these five?"
"Among the five men Taylor introduced you to, was one named Parker?"
"Did you get on friendly terms with him?"
"Did you call him 'Charlie' and allow him to call you 'Oscar'?"