season is
quite over.

Jack. Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can
produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I
really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.

Lady Bracknell. Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly
imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only
daughter--a girl brought up with the utmost care--to marry into a cloak-
room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

[Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.]

Jack. Good morning! [Algernon, from the other room, strikes up the
Wedding March. Jack looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door.] For
goodness' sake don't play that ghastly tune, Algy. How idiotic you are!

[The music stops and Algernon enters cheerily.]

Algernon. Didn't it go off all right, old boy? You don't mean to say
Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always
refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her.

Jack. Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is
concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never
met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I
am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster,
without being a myth, which is 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 That is exactly what things were originally made for.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 civilised life should be.

Jack. I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.
You can't go any