I don’t think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united.
jack
Well, that is no business of yours.
algernon
If it was my business, I wouldn’t talk about it. [Begins to eat muffins.] It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stockbroker’s [E: stockbrokers] do that, and then merely at dinner parties.
jack
How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when ·114· we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
algernon
Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
jack
I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
algernon
When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as anyone who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. [Rising.]
jack
[Rising.] Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. [Takes muffins from Algernon.]
algernon
[Offering tea-cake.] I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
·115· jack
Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.
algernon
But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.
jack
I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.
algernon
That may be. But the muffins are the same. [He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack.]
jack
Algy, I wish to goodness you would go.
algernon
You can’t possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It’s absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that. Besides I have just made arrangements with Dr. Chasuble to be christened at a quarter to six under the name of Ernest.
·116· jack
My dear fellow, the sooner you give up that nonsense the better. I made arrangements this morning with Dr. Chasuble to be christened myself at 5.30, and I naturally will take the name of Ernest. Gwendolen would wish it. We can’t both be christened Ernest. It’s absurd. Besides, I have a perfect right to be christened if I like. There is no evidence at all that I ever have been christened by anybody. I should think it extremely probable I never was, and so does Dr. Chasuble. It is entirely different in your case. You have been christened already.
algernon
Yes, but I have not been christened for years.
jack
Yes, but you have been christened. That is the important thing.
algernon
Quite so. So I know my constitution can stand it. If you are not quite sure about your ever having been christened, I must say I think it rather dangerous your venturing on it now. It might make you very unwell. You can hardly have forgotten that someone very closely connected with you was very nearly carried off this week in Paris by a severe chill.
·117· jack
Yes, but you said yourself that a severe chill was not hereditary.
algernon
It usen’t to be, I know—but I daresay it is now. Science is always making wonderful improvements in things.
jack
[Picking up the muffin-dish.] Oh, that is nonsense; you are always talking nonsense.
algernon
Jack, you are at the muffins again! I wish you wouldn’t. There are only two left. [Takes them.] I told you I was particularly fond of muffins.
jack
But I hate tea-cake.
algernon
Why on earth then do you allow tea-cake to be served up for your guests? What ideas you have of hospitality!
jack
Algernon! I have already told you to go. I don’t want you here. Why don’t you go!
·118· algernon
I haven’t quite finished my tea yet! and there is still one muffin left. [Jack groans, and sinks into a chair. Algernon still continues eating.]
Act-drop.
·119· Third Act.
·121· SCENE—Morning-room at the Manor House.
[Gwendolen and Cecily are at the window, looking out into the garden.]
gwendolen
The fact that they did not follow us at once into the house, as anyone else would have done, seems to me to show that they have some sense of shame left.
cecily
They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.
gwendolen
[After a pause.] They don’t seem to notice us at all. Couldn’t you cough?
cecily
But I haven’t got a cough.
gwendolen
They’re looking at us. What effrontery!
·122· cecily
They’re approaching. That’s very forward of them.
gwendolen
Let
