George Moore told Bernard Shaw that he recognised Oscar's hand in the writing again and again, though Shaw himself was far too keen-witted to be so misled.

As a matter of fact Oscar did not write a word of the play and the characters he sketched for Smithers and Roberts were altogether different from mine and were not known to me when I wrote my story.
I have set forth the bare facts of the affair here because Oscar managed to half-persuade Ross and Turner and other friends that I owed him money which I would not pay; though Ross had discounted most of his complaints, even before hearing my side.
Oscar got me over to Paris in September under the pretext that he was ill; but I found him as well as could be, and anxious merely to get more money out of me by any means.

I put it all down to his poverty.

I did not then know that Ross was giving him L150 a year; that indeed all his friends had helped him and were helping him with singular generosity, and I recalled the fact that when he had had money he never showed any meanness, or any desire to over-reach.

Want is a dreadful teacher, and I did not hold Oscar altogether responsible for his weird attitude to me personally.
OSCAR'S LAST DAYS! LETTER FROM ROBERT ROSS TO ---- Dec.