Jack Well, you have been eating them all the time.

Algernon That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. (Takes plate from below)° Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.

Jack (advancing to table and helping himself) And very good bread and butter it is too.

Algernon Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married to her already, and I don’t think you ever will be.

Jack Why on earth do you say that?

Algernon Well, in the first place, girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right.

Jack Oh, that is nonsense!

Algernon It isn’t. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don’t give my consent.

Jack Your consent!

Algernon My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin. And before I allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily. (Rings bell)

Jack Cecily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily? I don’t know anyone of the name of Cecily.

Enter Lane

Algernon Bring me that cigarette case Mr Worthing left in the smoking-room the last time he dined here.

Lane Yes, sir.

Lane goes out

Jack Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard° about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward.

Algernon Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up.

Jack There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found.

Enter Lane with the cigarette case on a salver.° Algernon takes it at once. Lane goes out

Algernon I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. (Opens case and examines it) However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn’t yours after all.

Jack Of course it’s mine. (Moving to him) You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

Algernon Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.