Amusing oddities

Or just annoyances

"Do tell me, Dorian," Lord Henry Wotton remarked one evening as the pair strolled the cobblestone streets, the cloud blotted moon occasionally spilling exquisite patterns across the buildings they passed by, "Who is this peculiar fellow you seem so determined to neglect to tell me of?" Whether it was intentional or not, the occasional click of the man's tasselled cane against the odd stone seemed to add an emphasis to words that would have otherwise been of little more substance than those that came before, and indeed those that came afterwards. 

"I don't think I shall," came the return, the blond youth's gaze turned skywards as if hoping to catch sight of a star through the mass of clouds before they made good on their promise of rain, the youth looking no different from the time a similar comment had been made about his own identity, "Rather, I am sure that I shall, and that would mean there was some explanation that could be found and that ruins some of the charm of the matter."

"Very sensible," the elder of the two remarked, the word rolling off his tongue with the sort of sense that one might have thought he believed if he were to have held it there a moment longer it might have begun to fester dreadfully, "If you cannot tell me of him, surely there is no harm in telling me of how you found yourself acquainted with someone like this fellow of yours?"

Dorian Gray pondered this for a moment, his hand brought to his mouth. The occasional straying of light across the rings that he proudly adorned his fingers with, setting them to twinkle in a way that he found to be most pleasing. He let the reluctance he felt about the matter fall away easily enough after a moment of rationalising it to himself.

"Well, yes, I can tell you so much at least," came his eventual reply, "By all accounts the evening had been perfectly commonplace. I was leaving the club, I'm not quite sure why you were not there, caught up in one of those tedious obligations that you have to oblige every now and again for the sake of appearances, I suppose, with the intention of retiring for the time being. I was to breakfast with Lady Marguerite and her gaggle of sour faced acquaintances and only a madman would wish to face that in any way other then well rested. I use the term madman, you see, specifically because it was this very moment I came across the madman who had caught your curiosity," a beat, "Oh, don't look at me like that, Harry, it is not as if you are not acquainted with the occasional madman."

"Quite," the other confirmed, "Only a madman would accept the monotony of the modern day without an escape of something tolerable, and yet too many choose to suffer just so."

"Indeed," the youth replied with a musical hum, "I admit, at first, I did not think very much of the fellow. You know the area well enough to know it draws the more uncouth sort, so I had been entirely prepared to pass the fellow away as just such. I would have, too, had I not been given cause to pay him mind, for it would not have been very long after that that I found myself rather unjustly attacked."

"Attacked?" Lord Henry echoed, aghast, "Dear boy, how dreadful! I did not know."

"Of course not, I did not see cause to tell you. I assume the man who had chosen to attack me was hoping to take something valuable enough to trade away for whatever dreadful vices kept that sort entertained, but it was then that our peculiar madman made himself known from the shadows," Dorian paused for emphasis, "Had the situation been a little better, I might have laughed at the sight of him. He decorated himself in more jewellery than that dreadful Spade woman who thinks she is better than everyone else just for having a long enough neck to display every necklace she owns, and I am sure he was aware of my amusement. Amusement I chalk off as a response to the fear I'm sure I felt at the time but cannot recall now. There was such an intensity in his gaze that I am certain that it was not only my fleeting amusement that he could see, but rather that even the briefest of glances had been more than enough to cut my very soul to pieces. 'I would think there are far better ways a person can spend their time than attacking young men trying to go about their evenings,' the man had said, or something to that end at least. I couldn't quite place his accent, beyond the fact there was something a little American to it. I'm sure the other man had replied to this, something beastly, no doubt, but the threat that I am sure must have come did not bother him. But what still stands out in my mind was the fact that the man had drawn the ire of my attacker in my place, and yet instead of simply leaving, he met the intended blow with a defence of his own. A defence that had been guided by a silver blade of such exquisite design that I was fascinated at once. I had thought him to be a vagrant, and yet he so willingly carried silver with him which seemed an odd combination to me."