ALGERNON: Yes! Fathers are certainly not popular just at present.

(Takes up the evening newspaper.)

JACK: Popular! I bet you anything you like that there is not a single chap, of all the chaps that you and I know, who would be seen walking down St. James’ Street with his own father. (Apause.) Anything in the papers?

ALGERNON: (still reading.) Nothing.

JACK: What a comfort.

ALGERNON: There is never anything in the papers, as far as I can see.

JACK: I think there is usually a great deal too much in them. They are always bothering one about people one doesn’t know, one has never met, and one doesn’t care twopence about. Brutes!

ALGERNON: I think people one hasn’t met are charming. I’m very much interested at present in a girl I have never met; very much interested indeed.

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ALGERNON: That is exactly what things were originally made for.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 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 patronising manner): My dear fellow, the truth isn’t quite the sort of think 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 the young lady whose guardian you are! Miss Cardew? What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

JACK: Oh! Cecily is all right. Before the end of the week I shall have got rid of my brother…I think I’ll probably kill him in Paris.

ALGERNON: Why Paris?

JACK: Oh! Less trouble: no nonsense about a funeral and that sort of thing – yes, I’ll kill him in Paris…Apoplexy will do perfectly well. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly, don’t they?