The other carpenters noticed that
henceforth, for some unknown reason, he kept his hands covered. A
few days afterwards I found Wilde, with smock frocks in various
colours spread out upon the floor in front of him, while a
missionary explained that he did not object to the heathen going
naked upon week days, but insisted upon clothes in church. He had
brought the smock frocks in a cab that the only art-critic whose
fame had reached Central Africa might select a colour; so Wilde
sat there weighing all with a conscious ecclesiastic solemnity.
VIII
Of late years I have often explained Wilde to myself by his family
history. His father, was a friend or acquaintance of my father's
father and among my family traditions there is an old Dublin
riddle: 'Why are Sir William Wilde's nails so black?' Answer,
'Because he has scratched himself.' And there is an old story
still current in Dublin of Lady Wilde saying to a servant. 'Why do
you put the plates on the coal-scuttle? What are the chairs meant
for?' They were famous people and there are many like stories, and
even a horrible folk story, the invention of some Connaught
peasant, that tells how Sir William Wilde took out the eyes of
some men, who had come to consult him as an oculist, and laid them
upon a plate, intending to replace them in a moment, and how the
eyes were eaten by a cat.
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