I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell.
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Who was your father?
He was evidently a man of some wealth.
Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?
Jack.
I am afraid I really don't know.
The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost 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.
Lady Bracknell.
Found!
Jack.
The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very 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.
Lady Bracknell.
Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?
Jack. [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.
Lady Bracknell.
A hand-bag?
Jack. [Very seriously.] 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.
Lady Bracknell.
In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?
Jack.
In the cloak-room at Victoria Station.
It was given to him in mistake for his own.
Lady Bracknell.
The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
Jack.
Yes. The Brighton line.
Lady Bracknell. 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?
As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion - has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now-but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.
Jack.
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.
Lady Bracknell.
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.
Jack.
Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment.
It is in my dressing-room at home.
I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell.
Me, sir!
What has it to do with me?