JACK
Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly in Paris,
by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.1
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 on 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.
ALGERNON
Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty
ward who is only just eighteen? 9. Woo, court. mourning. I think that all black, with a good pearl 1. In the four-act version of the play, Jack explains pin, rather smart. Then I'll go down home and further: 'I'll wear mourning for him, of course; that break the news to my household.' would be only decent. I don't at all mind wearing
.
1 1712 / OSCAR WILDE
JACK
Oh! one doesn't blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen
are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you anything you
like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other
sister.
ALGERNON
Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of
other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis's,
we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven? JACK [Irritably.] Oh! it always is nearly seven. ALGERNON
Well, I'm hungry.
JACK
1 never knew you when you weren't. . . .
ALGERNON
What shall we do after dinner? Go to the theatre?
JACK
Oh no! I loathe listening.
ALGERNON
Well, let us go to the club?
JACK
Oh, no! I hate talking.
ALGERNON
Well, we might trot around to the Empire2 at ten?
JACK
Oh no! I can't bear looking at things. It is so silly.
ALGERNON
Well, what shall we do?
JACK
Nothing!
