where 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 patronising 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 some one 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?

Algernon. Of course it isn't!

Jack. Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest to 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