Algernon Of course it isn’t!

Jack Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is 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.°

Algernon Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen?

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 I never knew you when you weren’t. …

Algernon What shall we do after dinner? Go to a 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 round to the Empire° at ten?

Jack Oh, no! I can’t bear looking at things. It is so silly.

Algernon Well, what shall we do?

Jack Nothing!

Algernon It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

Enter Lane

Lane Miss Fairfax.

Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out

Algernon Gwendolen, upon my word!