I can quite understand that.
ALGERNON
Well, Cecily is a darling.
JACK
YOU are not to talk of Miss Cardew like that. I don't like it. ALGERNON
Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly ridiculous in
them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It is perfectly childish to
be in deep mourning for a man who is actually staying for a whole week
with you in your house as a guest. I call it grotesque.
JACK
You are certainly not staying with me for a whole week as a guest or
anything else. You have got to leave .. . by the four-five train.
ALGERNON
I certainly won't leave you so 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 didn't.
JACK
Well, will you go if I change my clothes?
ALGERNON
Yes, if you are not too long. I never saw anybody take so long to
dress, and with such little result.
JACK
Well, at any rate, that is better than being always overdressed as you
are.
ALGERNON
If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by being
always immensely overeducated.
JACK
Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence
in my garden utterly absurd. However, you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town. This Bunburying, as you call it, has not been a great success for you. [Goes into the house.]
ALGERNON
I think it has been a great success. I'm in love with Cecily, and
that is everything.
[Enter CECILY at the back of the garden. She picks up the can and begins to water the flowers.]
But I must see her before I go, and make arrangements for another Bunbury.
Ah, there she is.
1. According to Cassell's Domestic Dictionary 'scent bottles, jars for pomade and tooth-powders, (1877?79), 'a convenient little receptacle in which hair brushes and combs, shaving, nail and tooth gentlemen who are going out shooting for the day, brushes, razors and strop, nail scissors, button- or artists who wish to sketch, can carry their lunch-hook, tweezer, nail file and penknife' [noted by eon with them.' 'Portmanteaus': large leather Russell Jackson]. suitcases. A 'dressing case' (also according to Cas-2. A horse-drawn cart with seats, originally sell's) was 'ordinarily made of rosewood, mahogany designed to carry hunters and their hunting dogs. or coromandel wood.' It was supposed to include
.
1 1722 / OSCAR WILDE
CECILY
Oh, I merely came back to water the roses. I thought you were with
Uncle Jack.
ALGERNON
He's gone to order the dogcart for me.
CECILY
