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!
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 some one 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?
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 to 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.
Jack.
I will take very good care you never do.
She is excessively pretty, and she is only just eighteen.