name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest 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. [Taking it from case.] 'Mr. Ernest Worthing,
B. 4, The Albany.'8 I'll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to anyone else. [Puts the card in his pocket.] JACK
Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the
cigarette case was given to me in the country.
ALGERNON
Yes, but that does not 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.
JACK
My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression. ALGERNON Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being
a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and 1 am quite sure of it now.
JACK
Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?
ALGERNON
I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as
soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and
Jack in the country.
JACK
Well, produce my cigarette case first.
ALGERNON
Here it is. [Hands cigarette case.] Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. [Sits on so/a.]
7. A fashionable resort town south of London. (brother of George IV) near Piccadilly that had 8. A former residence of the duke of Albany been converted into elegant apartments.
.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11
JACK My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at
all. In fact it's perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted
me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his granddaugh
ter, 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.
ALGERNON
Where is that place in the country, by the way?
JACK That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited. .. . I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire. ALGERNON
I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shrop
shire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town
and Jack in the country?
JACK My dear Algy, I don't know whether you will be able to understand my
real motives. You are hardly serious enough. 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 in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes.
That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
ALGERNON
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be
