 all men in the world,
to mix myself up in this horror? I should have thought you knew more about
people's characters. Your friend Lord Henry Wotton can't have taught you much
about psychology, whatever else he has taught you. Nothing will induce me to
stir a step to help you. You have come to the wrong man. Go to some of your
friends. Don't come to me.«
    »Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don't know what he had made me
suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or the marring of
it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended it, the result was the
same.«
    »Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? I shall not inform
upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without my stirring in the matter, you
are certain to be arrested. Nobody ever commits a crime without doing something
stupid. But I will have nothing to do with it.«
    »You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment; listen to me.
Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific
experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do
there don't affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory
you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it
for the blood to flow through, you would simply look upon him as an admirable
subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing
anything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were
benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or
gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to
do is merely what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be
far less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is
the only piece of evidence against me. If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is
sure to be discovered unless you help me.«
    »I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply indifferent to
the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me.«
    »Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you came I
almost fainted with terror. You may know
