rather unfair. … I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about your own aunt in that way before you.

Algernon My dear boy,° I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

Jack Oh, that is nonsense!

Algernon It isn’t!

Jack Well, I won’t argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.

Algernon That is exactly what things were originally made for.

Jack Upon my word, if I thought that, I’d shoot myself. … (A pause) You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you Algy?

Algernon All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

Jack Is that clever?

Algernon It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.

Jack I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. 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 patronizing 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 someone 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?