That’s his.
jack
Is that clever?
algernon
It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.
jack
I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever now-a-days. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.
algernon
We have.
jack
I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?
algernon
The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course.
jack
What fools!
·42· algernon
By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?
jack
[In a very patronising manner.] My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl. What extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman!
algernon
The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.
jack
Oh, that is nonsense.
algernon
What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?
jack
Oh, before the end of the week I shall have got rid of him. I’ll say he died in Paris of apoplexy. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly, don’t they?
·43· algernon
Yes, but it’s hereditary, my dear fellow. It’s a sort of thing that runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill.
jack
You are sure a severe chill isn’t hereditary, or anything of that kind?
algernon
Of course it isn’t!
jack
Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly in Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.
algernon
But I thought you said that … Miss Cardew was a little too much interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won’t she feel his loss a good deal?
jack
Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.
algernon
I would rather like to see Cecily.
·44· jack
I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen.
algernon
Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen?
jack
Oh! one doesn’t blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.
algernon
Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis’s, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven?
jack
[Irritably.] Oh! it always is nearly seven [E: seven.]
algernon
Well, I’m hungry.
·45· jack
I never knew you when you weren’t….
algernon
What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre?
jack
Oh no! I loathe listening.
algernon
Well, let us go to the Club?
jack
Oh, no! I hate talking.
algernon
Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten?
jack
Oh no! I can’t bear looking at things. It is so silly.
algernon
Well, what shall we do?
jack
Nothing!
·46· algernon
It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.
[Enter Lane.]
lane
Miss Fairfax.
[Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out.]
algernon
Gwendolen, upon my word!
gwendolen
Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing.
algernon
Really, Gwendolen, I don’t think I can allow this at all.
gwendolen
Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that. [Algernon retires to the fireplace.]
jack
My
