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 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.