"Eating as usual I see, Algy!" "I believe it is usual in good society to take some slight refreshment after morning exercise." "And what bring you to London, my dear Ernest?" "Oh, pleasure, pleasure!" "What else should bring one anywhere?" "Where have you been since last Thursday?" "In the country." "What on earth do you do there?" "When one is in town one amuses oneself." "When one is in the country one amuses other people." "And who are the people you amuse?" "Oh, neighbours, neighbours." "Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?" "Perfectly horrid!" "Never speak to one of them." "How immensely you must amuse them!" "Shropshire is your county, is it not?" "Shropshire?" "Yes, of course." "By the way, Gwendolen is in town, isn't she?" "She is." "In fact she's having tea with me this afternoon." "How perfectly delightful." "And so is Aunt Augusta." "You know, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you." "I am in love with Gwendolen." "I have come up to town expressly to propose to her." "I thought you had come up for pleasure?" "I call that business." "How utterly unromantic you are!" "I really don't see anything romantic in proposing." "It is very romantic to be in love." "But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal." "Why, one may be accepted." "One usually is, I believe." "Then the excitement is all over." "The very essence of romance is uncertainty." "If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact." "I have no doubt about that, dear Algy." "The Divorce Court was specially invented for people like you." "Divorces are made in Heaven." "Marriages are..." "Yes, Algy?" "Oh, well, there's no use speculating on this subject." "Or indeed your speculating on marrying Gwendolen." "Why on Earth you say that?" "Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with." " Oh, that is nonsense!" " It isn't." "It is a great truth." "It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place." "In the second place, I don't give my consent." "Your consent!" "My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin." "And before I allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily." "Cecily?" "What on earth do you mean?" "What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily!" "I don't know any one of the name of Cecily." "Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time?" "I wish to goodness you'd let me know." "I've been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it." "I was very nearly offering a large reward." "Well, I wish you would offer one." "I happen to be more than usually hard up." "There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found." "I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say." "However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription," "I find that the thing isn't yours after all." "But of course it's mine." "You have seen me with it a hundred times." "You have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside." "It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case." "Oh!" "It's absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't read." "More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read." "I am quite aware of the fact, and I don't propose to discuss modern culture with you." "It isn't the sort of thing one should talk of in private." "I simply want my cigarette case back." "Yes; but this isn't your cigarette case." "This cigarette case is a present from some one of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn't know any one of that name." "Well, if you want to know," "Cecily happens to be my aunt." " Your aunt!" " Yes." "Charming old lady she is, too." "Lives at Tunbridge Wells." "But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells?" "'From little Cecily with her fondest love.'" "My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that?" "Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall." "That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself." "For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case." "Yes." "But why does your aunt call you her uncle?" "'From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.'" "There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle," "I can't quite make out." "Besides, your name isn't Jack at all;" "it is Ernest." "It isn't Ernest; it's Jack." "You have always told me it was Ernest." "You are the most Ernest-looking person I ever saw in my life." "It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest." "It's on your cards." "Here is one of them." "'Mr." "Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany.'" "I shall keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny the fact to me, or to Gwendolen, or to any one else." "Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country." "But that doesn't account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle." "Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once." "My dear Algy, you talk exactly like a dentist." "I may mention that I have always suspected and now I am quite sure, that you are a confirmed and secret Bunburyist;" "Bunburyist?" "What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?" "I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression when you are kind enough to tell me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country." "Well, produce my cigarette case first." "Here it is." "Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable." "There is nothing improbable about my explanation at all." "Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his grand-daughter, Miss Cecily Cardew." "Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess," "Miss Prism." "Where in that place in the country, by the way?" "That is nothing to you, dear boy." "You are not going to be invited." "I may tell you candidly that it is not in Shropshire." "I suspected that!" "I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions." "Now, go on." "When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects." "It's one's duty to do so." "And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one's health or one's happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives here in the Albany," "and gets into the most dreadful scrapes." " That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth." " Oh, no." "What you really are is a Bunburyist." "I was perfectly right in saying you were a Bunburyist." "You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know." "What on earth do you mean?" "You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to London as often as you like." "I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose." "Bunbury really is invaluable." "If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance," "I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's tonight, for I have been really engaged to dine at Aunt Augusta's for more than a week." "I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere tonight." "I know." "You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations." "It is very foolish of you." "Nothing annoys people more than not receiving invitations." "Algy, eh..." "Seton!" "Sir?" "Seton I shall require a fresh gardenia this afternoon." "At four o'clock precisely." "Very well, sir." "Ethel, come here!" "Thank you, sir." "Giddap!" "Did you hear what I was singing, Lane?" "I didn't think it polite to listen, sir." "I'm sorry for that, for your sake." "I don't sing in tune, anybody can sing in tune." "But I sing with wonderful feeling." "Yes, sir." "You have got the cucumber sandwiches for Lady Bracknell?" "Yes, sir." "Excuse me, sir." "Have Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax arrived yet?" "No, sir." "Mr. Ernest Worthing." "Jack!" "I don't seem to remember inviting you." "No." "You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations." "Cucumber sandwiches?" "Why such reckless extravagance in one so young?" "Don't you touch them." "They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta." " Well, you are eating them." " That is quite a different matter." "She's my aunt." "Have some bread and butter." "The bread and butter is for Gwendolen." "Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter." "And very good bread and butter it is too." "My dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all." "You behave as if you were married to her already." "You are not married to her already, and I don't think you ever will be." "Now, Algy..." "That must be Aunt Augusta." "Only relatives or creditors ever ring in that Wagnerian manner." "Now, if I can get her out the way for 10 minutes, in order that you may have the opportunity for proposing to Gwendolen, may I dine with you at Willis's tonight?" "I suppose so, if you want to." "Yes, but you must be serious about it." "I hate people who are not serious about meals." "Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax." "Good afternoon, dear Algernon," "I hope you are behaving very well." "I'm feeling very well, Aunt Augusta." "That's not quite the same thing." "In fact the two things rarely go together." "How do you do, Mr. Worthing." "Dear me, Gwendolen, you are smart!" "I am always smart!" "Aren't I, Mr. Worthing?" "You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax." "Oh!" "I hope I am not that." "It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop" " in many directions." " Gwendolen." "Won't you come and sit here, Gwendolen?" "Thank you, mamma." "I am quite comfortable where I am." "I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury." "I hadn't been there since her poor husband's death." "I never saw a woman so altered;" "she looks quite twenty years younger." "And now I'll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me." "Certainly, Aunt Augusta." "Good heavens!" "Lane!" "Why are there no cucumber sandwiches?" "I ordered them specially." "There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir." "I went down twice." " No cucumbers!" " No, sir." "Not even for ready money." "Thank you, Lane." "That will do." "I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers," " not even for ready money." " It really makes no matter, Algernon." "I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now." "I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief." "It certainly has changed its colour." "From what cause I, of course, cannot say." "Forgive me, Aunt Augusta," "But I am afraid I shall have to give up the pleasure of dining with you tonight." "I hope not, Algernon." "It would put my table completely out." "Well, the fact is I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend" "Bunbury is very ill again." "They seem to think I should be with him." "Well, I must say," "I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me." "It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much." "I'll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, and I think I can promise you that he'll be all right by Saturday." "Of course the music is a great difficulty." "But I'll run over the programme" "I've worked out, if you will come into the other room." "Thank you, Algernon." "That's very thoughtful of you." "I'm sure the programme will be delightful, after a few expurgations." "French songs I cannot possibly allow." "People always seem to think that they are improper, and either look shocked, which is vulgar, or laugh, which is worse." "German sounds a thoroughly respectable language, and indeed, I believe it is so." "Gwendolen, you will accompany me." "Certainly, mamma." "Well, here is the programme I suggest, Aunt Augusta." "Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax." "Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing." "Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain they mean something else." "And that makes me so nervous." "I do mean something else." "I thought so." "In fact, I am never wrong." "I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady Bracknell's temporary absence..." "I would certainly advise you to do so." "Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about." "Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl I have ever met, since I met you." "Yes, I am quite aware of the fact." "And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative." "For me you have always had an irresistible fascination." "Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you." "We live, as I hope you know, Mr Worthing, in an age of ideals." "and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest." "There is something in that name which inspires absolute confidence." "The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest," "I knew I was destined to love you." "You really... love me, Gwendolen?" "Passionately!" "Darling!" "You don't know how happy you've made me." "My own Ernest!" "But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my name wasn't Ernest?" "But your name is Ernest." "Yes, I know it is." "But supposing it was something else?" "Do you mean to say you couldn't love me then?" "That is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them." "Personally, darling, to speak candidly," "I don't much care about the name of Ernest." "I don't think the name suits me at all." "It suits you perfectly." "It is a divine name." "It has a music of its own." "It produces vibrations." "Well, I must say, Gwendolen, that I think there are lots of other much nicer names." "I think..." "Jack, for instance." " A charming name!" " Jack?" "Oh, no!" "There is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed." "I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain." "Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John!" "And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John." "No, the only really safe name is Ernest." "Gwendolen..." "I must get christened at once!" "I mean, we must get married at once!" "Married, Mr. Worthing?" "Well..., surely." "You know that I love you, and you have led me to believe," "Miss Fairfax, that you were not entirely indifferent to me." "I adore you." "But you haven't proposed to me yet." "Well..." "May I propose to you now?" "I think it would be an admirable opportunity." "And to spare you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing," "I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly before-hand that I am fully determined to accept you." "Gwendolen!" "Yes, Mr. Worthing?" "What have you got to say to me?" "But you know what I have got to say to you." "Yes, but you don't say it." "Gwendolen..." "Will you marry me?" "Of course I will, darling." "How long you have been about it!" "I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose." "My own one, I have never loved any one in the world but you." "Yes, but men often propose for practice." "I know my brother does." "All my girl-friends tell me so." "What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest!" "They are quite, quite, blue." "I hope you will always look at me just like that, especially when there are other people present." "Mr. Worthing!" "Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture." "It is most indecorous." "Mamma!" "I must beg you to retire." "This is no place for you." "Besides, Mr. Worthing has not quite finished yet." "Finished what, may I ask?" "I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma." "Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one." "When you do become engaged to some one," "I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact." "An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be." "It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself." "And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing." "While I am making these inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage." "Mamma!" "In the carriage, Gwendolen!" "Gwendolen, the carriage!" "Yes, mamma." "You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing." "Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing." "I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has." "We work together, in fact." "But I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires." "Do you smoke?" "Well, yes, I must admit I smoke." "I am glad to hear it." "A man should have an occupation of some kind." "I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should either know everything or nothing." "Which do you know?" "I know nothing, Lady Bracknell." "I am pleased to hear it." "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance." "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit;" "touch it and the bloom is gone." "The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound." "Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever." "What is your income?" "Between seven and eight thousand a year." "In land, or in investments?" "In investments, chiefly." "That is satisfactory." "What between the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure." "It gives one position, but prevents one from keeping it up." "That's all that can be said about land." "I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, about fifteen hundred acres, I believe; but I don't depend on that for my real income." "In fact, as far as I can make out, the poachers are the only people who make anything out of it." "You have a town house, I hope?" "A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, can hardly be expected to reside in the country." "Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square, but it is let by the year to Lady Bloxham." "Lady Bloxham?" "No, I don't know her." "Oh, she goes about very little." "She is a lady considerably advanced in years." "Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character." "What are your politics?" "Well, I am afraid I really have none." "I am a Liberal." "Oh, they count as Tories." "They dine with us." "Or come in the evening, at any rate." "Now to minor matters." "Are your parents living?" "I have lost both my parents." "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune;" "to lose both looks like carelessness." "Who was your father?" "I am afraid I really don't know." "The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost both my parents." "It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me." "I don't actually know who I am by birth." "I was..." "Well, I was found." "Found!" "The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of most charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time." "Worthing is a place in Sussex." "It is a seaside resort." "Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?" "In a hand-bag." "A hand-bag?" "Yes, Lady Bracknell." "I was in a hand-bag." "A somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it." "An ordinary hand-bag in fact." "In what locality, did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?" "In the cloak-room at Victoria Station." "It was given to him in mistake for his own." "The cloak-room at Victoria Station?" "Yes." "The Brighton line." "The line is immaterial." "Mr. Worthing," "I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me." "To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution." "And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to?" "May I ask you then what you would advise me to do?" "I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's happiness." "I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over." "Well, I don't see how I could possibly do that, Lady Bracknell." "I can produce the hand-bag." "It is in my dressing- room." "I really think that ought to satisfy you." "Me, sir!" "What has it to do with me?" "You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter, a girl brought up with the utmost care, to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?" "Good morning, Mr. Worthing!" "Good morning, Lady Bracknell." "Algy, for heaven's sake stop playing that ghastly tune." "Didn't it go off all right, old boy?" "You mean to say Gwendolen refused you?" "Gwendolen is as right as a trivet." "As far as she is concerned, we are engaged." "Her mother is an absolute Gorgon." "I don't really know what a Gorgon is, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one." "In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair." "Algy..." "You don't suppose that Gwendolen will become like her mother in about one hundred and fifty years, do you?" "All women become like their mothers." "That is their tragedy." "No man does." "That's his." "Is that clever?" "It is perfectly phrased!" "And quite as true as any observation in civilised life should be." "Did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?" "My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl." "Besides, before the end of the week, I shall have got rid of Ernest." "My poor brother Ernest is going to be carried off quite suddenly, in Paris, by a severe chill." "But I thought you said that your..., your ward, was a little too much interested in your poor brother Ernest?" "Won't she feel his loss a good deal?" "Oh, Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am happy to say." "She has got a capital appetite, goes for long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons." "I would rather like to see Cecily." "I shall take very good care you never do." "She is excessively pretty, and only just eighteen." "Have you told Gwendolen that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just 18?" "One doesn't blurt these things out to people." "Cecily and Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely good friends." "I'll bet you anything that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister." "Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first." "Miss Fairfax." "Algy, kindly turn your back." "I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing." "Really, Gwendolen, I don't think I can allow this at all." "Ernest, we may never be married." "From the expression on mamma's face I fear we never shall." "But although she may prevent us from becoming man and wife, nothing that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you." "Your, your Christian name has an irresistible fascination." "The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me." "Your town address I have." "What is your address in the country?" "The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire." "There is a good postal service, I suppose?" "It may be necessary to do something desperate." "The Manor House, Woolton," "Hertfordshire." "My own one!" " Cecily!" " Yes, Miss Prism?" "Cecily!" "Come here at once, child." "We should have been at our labours quite twenty minutes ago, Cecily." "Unfortunately I was detained by a slight mishap to my..." "Oh, well, never mind to that." "Your German grammar is on the table." "But I don't like German." "It isn't at all a becoming language." "I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson." "Child, you know how anxious your guardian is that you should improve yourself in every way." "He laid particular stress on your German, as he was leaving for town yesterday." "Indeed, he always lays stress on your German when he is leaving for town." "We will repeat yesterday's lesson." "Genders." "Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious!" "Sometimes he is so serious that I think he cannot be quite well." "Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and his gravity of demeanour is especially to be commanded in one so comparatively young as he is." "I know no one who has a higher sense of duty and responsibility." "I suppose that is why he often looks a little bored when we three are together." "Cecily!" "I am surprised at you." "Mr. Worthing has many troubles in his life." "Idle merriment and triviality would be out of place in his conversation." "You must remember his constant anxiety about that unfortunate young man, his brother Ernest." "I wish Uncle Jack would allow that unfortunate young man, his brother Ernest, to come down here sometimes." "Diminutives are always neuter." "That is, they belong to neither sex, even one appearances are to the contrary." "As for example:" "das Fräulein, young lady." "das Mädchen, the young girl." "Put away your diary, Cecily!" "I really don't see why you should keep a diary at all." "I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life." "If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them." "Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us." "Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened." "I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that the library sends us." "Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel." "I wrote one myself in earlier days." "Did you really, Miss Prism?" "How wonderfully clever you are!" "I hope it did not end happily?" "I don't like novels that end happily." "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily." "That is what Fiction means." "I suppose so." "And was it ever published?" "Alas!" "No." "The manuscript unfortunately was abandoned." "I use the word in the sense of lost or mislaid." "Now to your work, child." "These speculations are profitless." "But I see dear Dr. Chasuble coming up through the garden." "And how are we this morning?" "Miss Prism, you are, I trust, well?" "Dr. Chasuble!" "This is indeed a pleasure." "Miss Prism has just been complaining of a slight headache." "I think it would do her so much good to go for a short stroll with you in the Park, Dr. Chasuble." "Cecily, I have not mentioned anything about a headache." "No, I know that, dear Miss Prism, but I felt instinctively that you had a headache." "Indeed I was thinking about that, and not about my German lesson, when the Rector arrived." "I hope, Cecily, you are not inattentive." "Oh, I am afraid I am." "That is strange." "Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism's pupil," "I would hang upon her lips." "I spoke metaphorically." "My metaphor was drawn from bees." "Mr. Worthing, I suppose, has not returned from town yet?" "We do not expect him till Monday afternoon." "Ah yes, he usually likes to spend his Sunday in London." "He is not one of those whose sole aim is enjoyment, as, by all accounts, that unfortunate young man his brother seems to be." "Sad." "But I must not disturb Egeria and her pupil any longer." "Egeria?" "My name is Laetitia, Doctor." "Laetitia." "That is Latin for joy!" "Yes." "I shall..." "I shall see you both no doubt at Evensong?" "I think, dear Doctor, I will have a stroll with you." "I find I have a headache after all, and a stroll might do it good." "Cecily, you will read your Political Economy in my absence." "The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit." "It is somewhat too sensational." "Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side." "Horrid Political Economy!" "Horrid Geography!" "Horrid, horrid German!" "You are too much alone, dear Dr. Chasuble." "You should get married." "Oh, no." "You do not seem to realise, dear Doctor, that by persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation." "A man should be more careful;" "or he may lead weaker vessels astray." "But is a man not equally attractive when married?" "No married man is ever attractive except to his wife." "And often, I've been told, not even to her." "But doesn't that depend on the intellectual sympathies of the woman?" "Maturity can always be depended on." "Ripeness can be trusted." "Young women are green." "I spoke horticulturally." "My metaphor was drawn from fruits." "Fruits, yes." "Mr. Ernest Worthing has just driven over from the station, Miss." "He has brought his luggage with him." "'Mr." "Ernest Worthing, B4, The Albany'" "Uncle Jack's brother!" "Did you tell him Mr. Worthing was in London?" "Yes, Miss." "He seemed very much disappointed." "He said he would like to speak to you privately for a moment." "I have left him in the morning room." "Thank you, Merriman." "I never met a really wicked person before." "I feel rather frightened." "I am so afraid he will look just like every one else." "He does." "You are my little cousin Cecily, aren't you?" "You are under some strange misapprehension." "I am not little." "In fact, I believe I am more than usually tall for my age." "But I am your cousin Cecily." "You, I see from your card, are Uncle Jack's brother, my cousin Ernest." "My wicked cousin Ernest." "Oh!" "I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily." "You mustn't think I am wicked." "If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner." "I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time." "That would be hypocrisy." "Oh!" "Of course I have been" " rather reckless." " I am glad to hear it." "In fact, now you mention the subject, I really have been very bad in my own small way." "I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant." "It is much pleasanter being here with you." "I can't understand how you are here at all." "Uncle Jack won't be back till Monday afternoon." "That is a great disappointment." "I am obliged to go up by the first train on Monday morning." "I have a business appointment that I am anxious to miss?" "Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London?" "No: the appointment is in London." "Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement," "but still I think you had better wait until Uncle Jack arrives." "I know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating." "My what?" "About your emigrating." "He has gone up to buy your outfit." "I certainly wouldn't allow Jack to buy my outfit." "He has no taste at all in neckties." "I don't think you will require neckties." "Uncle Jack is sending you to Australia." "Australia!" "I'd sooner die." "Well, he said at dinner on Wednesday night, that you would have to choose between this world, the next world, and Australia." "Oh, well!" "The reports I have of Australia and the next world, are not particularly encouraging." "This world is good enough for me, cousin Cecily." "Yes, but are you good enough for it?" "Well, no, I'm not that." "That is why I'd like you to reform me." "You might make that your mission, if you don't mind, cousin Cecily." "I'm afraid I have no time, this afternoon." "Well, would you mind if I reform myself this afternoon?" "It is rather romantic of you." "But I think you should try." "I will." "I feel better already." "You are looking a little worse." "That is because I am hungry." "How thoughtless of me." "I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals." "Might I have a buttonhole first?" "I never have any appetite unless I have a buttonhole first." "A Marechal Niel?" "No, I'd sooner have a pink rose." "Why?" "Because you are like a pink rose, Cousin Cecily." "I don't think it can be right for you to say such things to me." "Miss Prism never talks like that." "Then Miss Prism is a short-sighted old lady." "You are the prettiest girl I ever saw." "Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare." "They are a snare that any sensible man would like to be caught in." "Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man." "I shouldn't know what to talk to him about." "Mr. Worthing!" "Mr. Worthing!" "Dear Mr. Worthing, I trust this garb of woe does not betoken some terrible calamity?" "My brother." "More shameful debts and extravagance?" "Dead!" "Your brother Ernest dead?" "Quite dead." "What a lesson for him!" "I trust he will profit by it." "Mr. Worthing," "I offer you my sincere condolence." "Poor Ernest!" "He had many faults, but it is a sad, sad blow." "Very sad indeed." "Were you with him at the end?" "No." "He died abroad; in Paris, in fact." "I had a telegram last night from the manager of the Grand Hotel." "Was the cause of death mentioned?" "A severe chill, it seems." "As a man sows, so let him reap." "Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity!" "None of us are perfect." "I myself am peculiarly susceptible to draughts." "Will the interment take place here?" "No." "He seems to have expressed a desire to be buried in Paris." "In Paris!" "I fear that hardly points to any very serious state of mind at the last." "Uncle Jack!" "I am so glad to see you back." "But what horrid clothes you have got on!" "Cecily!" "My child!" "my child!" "Do look happy!" "I have got such a surprise for you." "Who do you think is in the dining-room?" "Your brother!" " Who?" " Your brother Ernest." "He arrived about half an hour ago." "What nonsense!" "I haven't got a brother." "Oh, don't say that." "However badly he may have behaved to you in the past he is still your brother." "You couldn't be so heartless as to disown him." "And you will shake hands with him, won't you, Uncle Jack?" "These are very joyful tidings." "After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sudden return seems to me peculiarly distressing." " Good heavens!" " Brother John," "I have come all the way from London to tell you how very sorry" "I am for all the trouble that I have caused you, and that I intend to lead a better life in the future." "Uncle Jack, you are not going to refuse your own brother's hand?" "Nothing will induce me to take his hand." "I consider his coming down here disgraceful." "He knows perfectly well why." "Uncle Jack, do be nice." "There is some good in every one." "Ernest has just been telling me about his poor invalid friend Mr. Bunbury." "Oh!" "He has been talking about Bunbury, has he?" "Well, I won't have him talk to you about Bunbury or about anything else." "Of course I admit that all the faults are on my side." "But I must say I think Brother John's coldness to me on my first visit here, peculiarly painful." "Uncle Jack, if you won't shake hands with Ernest I will never forgive you." " Never forgive me?" " Never." "Never, never!" "Well, this is the last time I shall do it." "I think we might leave the brothers together." "Cecily, you will come with us." "Certainly, Miss Prism." "My little task of reconciliation is over." "Algy, you, young scoundrel." "You must leave this place at once." "I don't want any Bunburying here." "Merriman, order the dog-cart at once." "Mr. Ernest has been called back suddenly to town." "Yes, sir." "What a fearful liar you are, dear Jack." "I have not been called back to town at all." " Yes, you have." " I haven't heard any one call me." "Your duty as a gentleman calls you back." "I have never allowed my duty as a gentleman to interfere with my pleasure to the smallest degree." "I can quite understand that." "Well, Cecily is a darling." "You are not to speak of Miss Cardew that way." "I don't like it." "Well, I don't like your clothes." "You look perfectly grotesque in them." "Why don't you go up and change?" "It is childish to be in mourning for a man who is staying for a week in your house as a guest." "You are not staying with me for a whole week as a guest or anything else." "You are going to leave this afternoon." "By the 4:05 train." "I certainly should not leave you as long as you are in mourning." "It would be most unfriendly." "If I were in mourning you would stay with me, I suppose." "I should think it very unkind if you did not." "Well, will you go if I change my clothes?" "Yes, if you are not too long." "I never saw a man take so long to dress, with such little result." "Well, at any rate, that is better than being always over-dressed as you are." "This Bunburying, as you call it, has not been a great success for you." "I think it has been a great success." "Did you ring, sir?" "Merriman, am I correctly garbed for a christening?" "No, sir." "Black is for funerals and weddings." "White is for christenings." "I'll lay out your tennis clothes." "Thank you, Merriman." "Oh, I thought you were with Uncle Jack." "He's gone to order the dog-cart for me." "Oh, is he going to take you for a nice drive?" "He's going to send me away." "Then have we got to part?" "I am afraid so." "It's a very painful parting." "It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time." "The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity." "But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable." "Thank you." "The dog-cart is at the door, sir." "It can wait, Merriman for... five minutes." "Yes, Miss." "I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite openly and frankly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection." "I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest." "If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary." "Do you really keep a diary?" "I'd give anything to look at it." " May I?" " Oh, no." "You see, it is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication." "When it appears in volume form" "I hope you will order a copy." "But pray, Ernest, don't stop." "I delight in taking down from dictation." "I have reached 'absolute perfection'." "You can go on." "I am quite ready for more." "Oh, don't cough, Ernest." "I don't know how to spell a cough." "Cecily, ever since I first saw your wonderful and incomparable perfection," "I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly." "I don't think you should tell me that you love me wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly." "Hopelessly doesn't seem to make much sense, does it?" "Cecily!" "The dog-cart is waiting, sir." "Tell it to come round next week, at the same hour." "Very good, sir." "Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you're staying on till next week at the same hour." "Oh, I don't care about Jack." "I don't care for anybody in the world but you." "I love you, Cecily." "Will you marry me?" "Of course." " We have been engaged for the last 3 months." " The last 3 months?" "Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday." "How did we become engaged?" "Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism." "And of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive." "One always feels there must be something in him, after all." "I daresay it was foolish of me," " but I fell in love with you, Ernest." " Darling!" "And when was the engagement actually settled?" "On the 22nd of February last." "Worn out by your entire ignorance of my existence," "I determined to end the matter one way or the other, and after a long struggle with myself" "I accepted you." "Under that dear old chandelier there." "The next day I bought this ring in your name, and this is the bangle with the true lover's knot that I promised you always to wear." "Did I give you this?" "It's very pretty, isn't it?" "Yes, you've wonderfully good taste, Ernest." "It's always been my excuse for your leading such a bad life." "And this..." "This is the box in which I keep all your dear letters." "My letters!" "But, my own sweet Cecily, I never wrote you any letters." "You need hardly remind me of that, Ernest." "I remember only too well I was forced to write all your letters for you." "I wrote three times a week, sometimes oftener." " Oh, let me read them." " Oh, no." "I couldn't possibly." "They would make you far too conceited." "The three you wrote to me after our engagement had been broken off are so beautiful, and so badly spelled," "that even now I can hardly read them without crying a little." "But was our engagement ever broken off?" "Of course it was." "On the 22nd of last March." "You can see the entry if you like." "'today I broke off my engagement with Ernest." "I feel it is better to do so." "The weather still continues charming.'" "But why on earth did you break it off?" "What had I done?" "I had done nothing at all." "Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed that you broke it off." "Particularly when the weather was so charming." "It would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn't been broken off at least once." "But I forgave you before the week was out." "What a perfect angel you are!" "You won't ever break off our engagement again, will you?" "I don't think I could now that I have actually met you." "Besides, of course, there is the question of your name." "Of course." "You must not laugh at me, darling, but it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one by the name of Ernest." "There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence." "Indeed, I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest." "But, my dear child, do you mean to say you could not love me" " if I had some other name?" " But what name?" "Oh, any name you like." "Algernon, for instance." "But I don't like the name of Algernon." "I really don't see why you should object to the name of" "Algernon." "It is not a bad name at all." "In fact, it is rather an aristocratic name." "Half the chaps who get into the Bankruptcy Court are called Algernon." "But seriously, Cecily." "If my name was Algy, couldn't you love me?" "I might respect you, Ernest," "I might admire your character, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided attention." "Cecily, your vicar here is, I suppose, thoroughly experienced in the practice of all the rites and ceremonials of the Church?" "Oh, yes." "Dr. Chasuble is a most learned man." "I must see him at once on a most important christening." "I mean on most important business." " I won't be away more than half an hour." " Ernest!" "Considering that we have been engaged since February the 22nd, and that I only met you today for the first time," "I think it is rather hard that you should leave me for so long a period as half an hour." "Couldn't you make it twenty minutes?" "I'll be back in no time." " Mr. Worthing." " Good afternoon, Dr. Chasuble." "I trust you'll excuse this relapse into the arms of Morpheus." "In other words, 40 winks." "Dr. Chasuble, I suppose you know how to christen all right?" "I mean, of course, you are continually christening, aren't you?" "It is, I regret to say, one of my most constant duties in this parish." "I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the subject." " But they don't seem to know what thrift is." " Well." "But is there any particular infant in whom you are interested, Mr. Worthing?" " Of course!" "Your brother." " I beg your pardon?" "Your brother, I know, is unmarried, but..." "Dr. Chasuble, it is not for any child." "The fact is, I was thinking of getting christened myself." "This afternoon, if you have nothing better to do." "But surely, Mr. Worthing, you have been christened already?" "I don't remember anything about it." "But have you any grave doubts on the subject?" "I certainly intend to have." "Unless, of course, you think I'm a little too... old now." "Not at all." "The sprinkling, and, indeed, the immersion of adults is a perfectly canonical practice." "Immersion!" "You need have no apprehensions." "Sprinkling is all that is necessary, or indeed I think advisable." "Our weather is so changeable." "At what hour would you like the ceremony performed?" "Well, I thought I would trot round about five, if that would suit you too?" "Perfectly, perfectly!" "In fact I have two similar ceremonies to perform at that time." "A case of twins that occurred recently in one of the outlying cottages on your own estate." "Poor Jenkins the carter, a most hard-working man." "Well, I don't see much fun in being christened along with other babies." "It would be childish." "Would half-past five do?" "Admirably!" "Admirably!" " Till half-past five." " Half-past five at the font." "Come in." "Dr. Chasuble?" "What a perfect angel you are, Cecily." "And then is when he knelt." "Yes, I am sure that is how it was." "A Miss Fairfax has called to see Mr. Worthing, Miss." "On very important business, Miss Fairfax states." "Isn't Mr. Worthing in the library?" "Mr. Worthing went over in the direction of the Rectory some time ago, Miss." "Pray ask the lady to come out here;" "Mr. Worthing is sure to be back soon." "And, Merriman, you may bring tea." "Yes, Miss." "Oh, dear." "One of the many good elderly women associated with Uncle Jack in some of his philanthropic work in London, I suppose." "Miss Fairfax." "Miss Fairfax?" "Pray let me introduce myself to you." "My name is Cecily Cardew." "What a very sweet name!" "Something tells me that we are going to be great friends." "I like you already more than I can say." "My first impressions of people are never wrong." "How nice of you to like me so much after we have known one another for such a comparatively short time." "Shall we sit over there?" " I may call you Cecily, may I not?" " With pleasure." "And you will always call me Gwendolen, won't you?" "If you wish." "Then that is all quite settled, is it not?" "I hope so." "Cecily, mamma, whose views on education are remarkably strict, has brought me up to be extremely short-sighted;" "it is part of her system;" "do you mind my looking at you through my glasses?" "Oh!" "not at all, Gwendolen." "I am very fond of being looked at." "You are here on a short visit, I suppose." " Oh no!" "I live here." " Really?" "Your mother, no doubt, or some female relative of advanced years, resides here also?" "Oh no!" "I have no mother, nor, in fact, any relations." "I am Mr. Worthing's ward." "It is strange he never mentioned to me that he had a ward." "How secretive of him!" "He grows more interesting hourly." "I am not sure, however, that the news inspires me with feelings of unmixed delight." "In fact, if I may speak quite candidly," "Pray do!" "I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid." "Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily," "I wish that you were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age." "Ernest has a strong upright nature." "I beg your pardon, Gwendolen, did you say Ernest?" "Yes." "Oh, but it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is my guardian." "It is his brother, his elder brother." "Ernest never mentioned to me that he had a brother." "I am sorry to say that they have not been on good terms for a long time." "That accounts for it." "Of course you are quite, quite sure that it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is your guardian?" "Quite sure." "In fact," "I am going to be his." "I beg your pardon?" "Dearest Gwendolen, there is no reason why I should make a secret of it to you." "Our little county newspaper is sure to chronicle the fact next week." "Mr. Ernest Worthing and I are engaged to be married." "My darling Cecily," "I think there must be some slight error." "Mr. Ernest Worthing is engaged to me." "The announcement will appear in the Morning Post on Saturday at the latest." "I am afraid you must be under some misconception." "Ernest proposed to me exactly ten minutes ago." "It is certainly very curious, for he asked me to be his wife yesterday afternoon at 5.30." "If you would care to verify the incident, pray do so." "I never travel without my diary." "One should always have something sensational to read in the train." "I am so sorry, dearest Cecily, if it is any disappointment to you, but I am afraid I have the prior claim." "It would distress me more than I can say, dearest Gwendolen, if it caused you any mental or physical anguish, but I feel bound to point out that since Ernest proposed to you he has clearly changed his mind." "If the poor fellow has been entrapped into any foolish promise" "I shall consider it my duty to rescue him at once, and with a firm hand." "Whatever unfortunate entanglement my dear boy may have got himself into," "I will never reproach him with it after we are married." "Do you allude to me, Miss Cardew, as an entanglement?" "You are presumptuous." "On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind." "It becomes a pleasure." "Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement?" "How dare you?" "This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners." "When I see a spade I call it a spade." "I am glad to say I have never seen a spade." "It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different." "Shall I lay tea here as usual, Miss?" "Yes, as usual." "Are there many interesting walks" " in the vicinity, Miss Cardew?" " Oh, yes." "A great many." "From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five counties." "Five counties!" "I don't think I should like that;" "I hate crowds." "I suppose that is why you live in a town?" "I had no idea there were any flowers in the country." "Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London." "May I offer you some tea?" "Thank you." "Sugar?" "No, thank you." "Sugar is not fashionable any more." "Cake?" "Or bread and butter?" "Bread and butter, please." "Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays." "Hand that to Miss Fairfax." "You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I most distinctly asked for bread and butter, you have given me cake." "I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far." "To save my poor, innocent, trusting boy from the machinations of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not go." "From the moment I saw you I distrusted you." "I felt that you were false and deceitful." "I am never deceived in such matters." "My first impressions of people are invariably right." "It seems to me, Miss Fairfax, that I am trespassing on your valuable time." "No doubt you have many other calls of a similar character to make in the neighbourhood." "Gwendolen!" "My own Ernest!" "Gwendolen!" "Darling!" "A moment!" "May I ask if you are engaged to be married to this young lady?" "To dear little Cecily!" "Good Heavens, no!" "What has put such an idea into your pretty little head?" "Thank you." "You may!" "I knew there must be some misunderstanding, Miss Fairfax." "The gentleman whose arm is at present round your waist is my dear guardian, Mr. John Worthing." "I beg your pardon?" "This is Uncle Jack." "Jack?" "Oh!" "Cecily!" "Here is Ernest." "My own love!" "A moment!" "Are you by any chance engaged to be married to this young lady?" "To what young lady?" " Good heavens!" "Gwendolen!" " Yes!" "To good heavens Gwendolen," "I mean, Gwendolen." "Of course not!" "What could have put such an idea into your pretty little head?" "Thank you..." "You may." "I felt there must be some slight error, Miss Cardew." "The gentleman who is now embracing you is my cousin," "Mr. Algernon Moncrieff." "Algernon Moncrieff?" "Are you called Algernon?" "I cannot deny it." "Is your name really John?" "Well, I could deny it if I liked." "I could deny anything if I liked." "But my name certainly is John." "A gross deception has been practised on both of us." "My poor wounded Cecily!" "My sweet wronged Gwendolen!" "You will call me sister, will you not?" "There is just one question I would like to be allowed to ask my guardian." "An admirable idea!" "Mr. Worthing, there is just one question I would like to be permitted to put to you." "Where is your brother Ernest?" "We are both engaged to be married to your brother Ernest, so it is a matter of some importance to us to know where your brother Ernest is" " at present." " Gwendolen and Cecily." "I will tell you quite frankly that I have no brother Ernest." "I have no brother at all." "No brother at all?" "None!" "Have you never had a brother of any kind?" "Never." "Not even of any kind." "I am afraid it is quite clear, Cecily, that neither of us is engaged to be married to any one." "It is not a very pleasant position for a young girl suddenly to find herself in." "Is it?" "Let us go into the house." "They will hardly venture to come after us there." "No." "Men are such cowards, aren't they?" "This ghastly state of things is what you would call Bunburying, I suppose?" "Yes, the most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life." "Well, the only small satisfaction I get out of the whole of this wretched business is that your friend Bunbury, dear Algy, is quite exploded." "And a very good thing too." "Your brother is a little off colour, isn't he, dear Jack?" "And not a bad thing either." "As for your deceiving a sweet, simple, innocent girl like Miss Cardew, I can only say... it's inexcusable." "To say nothing of the fact that she is my ward." "I can see no possible defence at all for your deceiving a clever, experienced young lady like Miss Fairfax." "To say nothing of the fact that she is my cousin." "I simply wanted to be engaged to Gwendolen, that is all." "I love her." "Well, I simply wanted to be engaged to Cecily." "I adore her." "There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew." "I don't think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united." "Guard!" "Will you be good enough to inform me how soon this railway train arrives at Woolton?" "Now, let me see..." "There's Gotherington..." "No, we've passed it." "And there's Goostrey Halt," "Sopley," "Cobbler's Corner," "Combe Brissett," "High Totten," "Low Totten, Little..." "How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can't imagine." "You seem to be perfectly heartless." "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." "I say it's perfectly heartless to be eating them at all." "When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me." "They are eating muffins!" "Algy, I wish to goodness you would go." "But I've just made arrangements with Dr. Chasuble to be christened at 6:00 under the name of Ernest." "I made arrangements myself to be christened at 5.30 and I naturally will take the name of Ernest." "I have a perfect right to be christened." "There is no evidence that I was ever christened by anyone." "It is entirely different with you." "You have been christened already." "Yes, but I have not been christened for years." "Yes, but you have been christened." "That is the important thing." "Quite so." "So I know my constitution can stand it." "It might make you very unwell." "You can hardly have forgotten that some one very closely connected with you was nearly carried off" " in Paris this week by a severe chill." " You talk as if a severe chill were hereditary." "It usen't to be, I know, but it may be now." "Science is always making wonderful improvements in things." "They're looking this way." "What effrontery!" "They're approaching." "That's very forward of them." "Let us preserve a dignified silence." "Certainly." "It is the only thing to do now." "Mr. Worthing," "I have something very particular to ask you." "Much depends on your reply." "Your common sense is invaluable, Gwendolen." "Mr. Moncrieff, kindly answer me the following question." "Why did you pretend to be my guardian's brother?" "In order that I might have an opportunity of meeting you." "That certainly seems a satisfactory explanation, does it not?" "Yes, dear, if you can believe him." "Mr. Worthing, what explanation can you offer me for pretending to have a brother?" "Was it in order that you might have an opportunity of coming up to town to see me as often as possible?" "Can you doubt it, Miss Fairfax?" "I have the gravest doubts on the subject." "But I intend to crush them." "Their explanations appear to have the stamp of truth upon them." "Especially Mr. Worthing's." "I am more than content with what Mr. Moncrieff has said." "His voice alone inspires one with absolute credulity." "Then you think we should forgive them?" "Yes." "I mean no." "True!" "I had forgotten." "There are principles at stake that one cannot surrender." "Which of us should tell them?" "The task is not a pleasant one." " Could we not both speak at the same time?" " An excellent idea!" "I nearly always speak at the same time as other people." "Will you take the time from me?" "Your Christian names are still an insuperable barrier." "That is all!" "Our Christian names!" "Is that all?" "But we are going to be christened this afternoon." "For my sake you are prepared to do this terrible thing?" "I am." "To please me you are ready to face this fearful ordeal?" "I am." "How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes!" "Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us." "We are." " Darling!" " Darling!" "Gwendolen!" "What does this mean?" "Merely that I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma." "Come here." "Sit down." "Sit down immediately." "Mr. Worthing, you will clearly understand that all communication between yourself and my daughter must cease immediately from this moment." "On this, as indeed on all points, I am firm." "I am engaged to be married to Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell!" "You are nothing of the kind, sir." "And now, as regards Algernon!" "Algernon!" "Yes, Aunt Augusta." "May I ask if it is in this house that your invalid friend Mr. Bunbury resides?" "Oh!" "No!" "Bunbury doesn't live here." "Bunbury is somewhere else at present." "In fact, Bunbury is dead," "Dead!" "When did Mr. Bunbury die?" "Oh!" "I killed Bunbury this afternoon." "I mean Bunbury died this afternoon." "What did he die of?" "Bunbury?" "Oh, he was quite exploded." "Exploded!" "Was he a victim of a revolutionary outrage?" "My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out!" "The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean, so, Bunbury died." "And now that we have finally got rid of this Mr. Bunbury, may I ask, Mr. Worthing, who is that young person whose hand my nephew Algernon is holding in what appears to me to be a peculiarly unnecessary manner?" "That lady is Miss Cecily Cardew, my ward." "I am engaged to be married to Cecily, Aunt Augusta." "I beg your pardon?" "Mr. Moncrieff and I are engaged to be married, Lady Bracknell." "Indeed!" "I think some preliminary inquiry on my part would not be out of place." "Mr. Worthing, is Miss Cardew at all connected with any of the larger railway stations in London?" "I merely require information." "Until yesterday I had no idea that there were any families or persons whose origin was a Terminus." "Miss Cardew is the grand-daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Cardew of 149 Belgrave Square, South West;" "Gervase Park, Dorking, Surrey; and the Sporran," " Fifeshire." " That sounds not unsatisfactory." "Three addresses always inspire confidence, even in tradesmen." "But what proof have I of their authenticity?" "I have carefully preserved the Court Guides of the period." "They are open to your inspection, Lady Bracknell." "I have known strange errors in that publication." "Miss Cardew's family solicitors are Messrs. Markby, Markby, and Markby." "Markby, Markby, and Markby?" "A firm of the very highest position in their profession." "I have also in my possession, you will be pleased to hear, certificates of Miss Cardew's birth, baptism, whooping cough, registration, vaccination, confirmation, and the measles; the German and the English variety." "A life crowded with incident, I see;" "but somewhat too exciting for a young girl." "Gwendolen, the time approaches for our departure." "We have not a moment to lose." "As a matter of form, Mr. Worthing," "I had better ask if Miss Cardew has any little fortune?" "Only about one hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds." "That is all." "Goodbye, Lady Bracknell." "So pleased to have seen you." "One moment, Mr. Worthing." "A hundred and thirty thousand pounds!" "And in the Funds!" "Miss Cardew seems a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her." "Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities, qualities that last, and improve with time." "We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces." "Come over here, dear." "Pretty child!" "Your dress is sadly simple and your hair seems almost as Nature might have left it." "But we can soon alter all that." "A thoroughly experienced French maid produces a really remarkable result in a very brief space of time." "There are distinct social possibilities in your profile." "Cecily is the dearest, sweetest, prettiest girl in the world." "And I don't care twopence her social possibilities." "Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon." "Only people who can't get into it do that." "I suppose you know that Algernon has nothing but his debts to depend upon." "But I do not approve of mercenary marriages." "When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind." "But I never dreamed of allowing that to stand in my way." "Well, I suppose I must give my consent." "Thank you, Aunt Augusta." "Cecily, you may kiss me!" "Thank you, Lady Bracknell." "You may also address me as Aunt Augusta for the future." "Thank you, Aunt Augusta." "The marriage, I think, had better take place quite soon." "Thank you, Aunt Augusta." "To speak frankly," "I am not in favour of long engagements." "They give people an opportunity of finding out each other's characters before marriage, which I think is never advisable." "I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this engagement is quite out of the question." "I am Miss Cardew's guardian, and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age." "That consent I absolutely decline to give." "Upon what grounds may I ask?" "Algernon is an extremely," "I may almost say ostentatiously, eligible young man." "He has nothing, and looks everything." "What more can one desire?" "It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character." "I suspect him of being untruthful." "Untruthful!" "My nephew Algernon untruthful?" "Impossible!" "He was at Oxford." "I fear there can be no possible doubt about the matter." "This afternoon during my temporary absence in London on an important question of romance, he obtained admission to my house by means of the false pretence of being my brother." "Under an assumed name he drank," "I've just been informed by my butler, an entire pint bottle of Perrier-Jouet, Brut, '89;" "a wine I was specially reserving for myself." "Continuing his disgraceful deception, he succeeded during the course of the afternoon in alienating the affections of my only ward." "He subsequently stayed to tea, and devoured every single muffin." "What makes his conduct more heartless is that he was aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don't intend to have a brother, not even of any kind." "Mr. Worthing, after careful consideration" "I have decided entirely to overlook my nephew's conduct towards you." "That is very generous of you, Lady Bracknell." "My own decision, however, is unalterable." "I decline to give my consent." "Come here, sweet child." "How old are you?" "Well, I am really only eighteen, but I always admit to twenty when I go to evening parties." "You are perfectly right in making some slight alteration." "A woman should never be really accurate about her age." "It looks so calculating." "Eighteen, admitting to twenty at evening parties." "Well, you will soon be of age and free from the restraints of tutelage." "So that I do not think your guardian's consent is a matter of any importance." "Pray excuse me for interrupting you once again, Lady Bracknell, but I think it is only fair to point out that under to the terms of her grandfather's will" "Miss Cardew does not legally come of age until she is thirty-five." "That does not seem to me to be a very grave objection." "Thirty-five is a very attractive age." "London society is full of women of the highest birth who, of their own free choice, have remained thirty-five for years." "Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point." "To my own knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of forty, which was many years ago now." "I see no reason why our dear Cecily should not be even more attractive at the age you mention than she is at present." "There will be a large accumulation of property." "Algy, could you wait for me till I was thirty-five?" "Of course I could, Cecily." "You know I could." "Yes, I felt that instinctively." "But I couldn't wait all that time." " But Cecily!" " My dear Mr. Worthing, as Miss Cardew states positively that she cannot wait until she is thirty-five, a remark which I am bound to say seems to me to show a somewhat impatient nature," "I would beg of you to reconsider your decision." "But my dear Lady Bracknell, the matter is entirely in your own hands." "The moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen," "I will most gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward." "That is not the destiny I propose for Gwendolen." "Algernon, of course, can choose for himself." "Come, dear." "We have already missed five, if not six, trains." "To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform." "Everything is quite ready for the christenings." "The christenings, sir!" "Is not that somewhat premature?" "Both these gentlemen have expressed a desire for immediate baptism." "At their age?" "The idea is grotesque and irreligious!" "Algernon, I forbid you to be baptized." "I will not hear of such excesses." "Am I to understand that there be no christenings at all this afternoon?" "I don't think that, with things as they are, Dr. Chasuble, they would be of much practical value to either of us." "As your present mood seems to be one peculiarly secular," "I will return to the church at once." "Indeed, I have just been informed" " Miss Prism has been waiting for me." " Miss Prism!" "Did I hear you mention a Miss Prism?" "Yes, indeed." "I am on my way to join her." "Kindly allow me to detain you for one moment." "Is this Miss Prism a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with education?" "She is the most cultivated of ladies, and the very picture of respectability." "It is obviously the same person." "May I ask what is her position in your household?" "Miss Prism, Lady Bracknell, has for the last three years been Miss Cardew's esteemed governess and valued companion." "In spite of what I hear of her, I must see her at once." "Let her be sent for." "She approaches;" "she is nigh." "I was told you expected me in the vestry, dear Canon." "I have been waiting for you there for an hour and three-quarters." "Prism!" "Come here, Prism!" "Prism!" "Where is that baby?" "Twenty-eight years ago, Prism, you left Lord Bracknell's house, in charge of a perambulator containing an infant of the male sex." "You never returned." "Some few weeks later the perambulator was discovered at midnight, standing by itself in a remote corner of Bayswater." "It contained the manuscript of a three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality." "But the baby was not there!" "Prism!" "Where is that baby?" "Where is that baby, Prism?" "Lady Bracknell," "I admit with shame that I do not know." "I only wish I did." "The plain facts of the case are these." "On the morning of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory," "I prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator." "I had also with me a somewhat old, but capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my few unoccupied hours." "In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I never can forgive myself," "I deposited the manuscript in the bassinette, and placed the baby in the hand-bag." " But where did you deposit the hand-bag?" " Do not ask me, Mr. Worthing." "Miss Prism, this is a matter of no small importance to me." "I insist on knowing where you deposited the hand-bag that contained that infant." "I left it in the cloak-room of one of the larger railway stations in London." "What railway station?" "Victoria." "The Brighton line?" "The Brighton line." "Gwendolen, wait here for me." "If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life." "This suspense is terrible." " Miss Prism, is this the handbag?" " Let me look." "Examine it carefully before speaking." "The happines of more than one life depends on your answer." "Thank you." "It seems to be mine." "Yes, here is the injury it received through the upsetting of a Gower Street omnibus in younger and happier days." "Here is the stain on the lining caused by the explosion of a temperance beverage, an incident that occurred at Leamington." "And here, on the lock, are my initials." "I had forgotten that in an extravagant mood I had had them placed there." "The bag is undoubtedly mine." "I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me." "It has been a great inconvenience being without it all these years." "Miss Prism, more is restored to you than the hand-bag." "I am the baby that was placed in it." "You?" "Yes..." "Mother!" "Mr. Worthing!" "I am unmarried." "Unmarried!" "I do not deny that is a serious blow." "But who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered?" "Cannot repentance wipe out an act of folly?" "Why should there be one law for men, and another for women?" "Mother, I forgive you." "Mr. Worthing, there is some error." "There is the lady who can tell you who you really are." "Oh, dear." "Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I really am?" "You are the son of my poor sister, Mrs. Moncrieff, and consequently Algernon's elder brother." "Algy's elder brother!" "Then I have a brother after all." "I knew I had a brother!" "I always said I had a brother!" "Cecily, how could you have ever doubted that I had a brother?" "Dr. Chasuble, my unfortunate brother." "Miss Prism, my unfortunate brother." "Gwendolen, my unfortunate brother." "Algy, you young scoundrel, you will have to behave with more respect to me in the future." "You have never behaved to me like a brother in all your life." "Well, not till today, old boy, I admit." "I tried my best, however, though I was out of practice." "My own!" "But what own are you?" "What is your Christian name, now that you have become some one else?" "Your decision on the subject of my Christian name is irrevocable, I suppose?" "I never change, except in my affections." "What a noble nature you have, Gwendolen!" "Then the question must be cleared up once and for all." "Aunt Augusta, at the time when Miss Prism left me in the hand-bag, had I been christened already?" "Every luxury that money could buy, including christening, had been lavished on you by your fond and doting parents." "Then I was christened!" "That is settled." "Now, what was my Christian name?" "Let me know the worst." "Being the eldest son you were naturally called after your father." "Yes, but what was my father's Christian name?" "I cannot at the moment recall what the General's Christian name was." "I have no doubt he had one." "He was eccentric, I admit." "But only in later years." "Algy!" "Can't you recollect what our father's Christian name was?" "My dear boy, we were never even on speaking terms." "He died before I was a year old." "His name would be in the Army Lists of the period, I suppose, Aunt Augusta?" "The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life." "But I have no doubt his name would appear in any military directory." "The Army Lists of the last forty years are here." "These delightful records should have been my constant study." "M..." "Generals..." "Magley, Maxbey," "Maxbohm..." "What ghastly names." "Merkly, Migsby, Mobbs." "Moncrieff!" "Lieutenant 1840, Captain, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, General 1869," "Christian name," "Ernest John." "Gwendolen, I always told you that my name was Ernest, didn't I?" "Ernest." "My own Ernest!" "Cecily, at last!" "Laetitia, at last!" "Gwendolen, at last!" "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality." "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta," "I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest."