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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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3 ALG Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. LANE I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. ALG Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that? LANE I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. ALG [Languidly.] I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane. LANE No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself. ALG Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you. LANE Thank you, sir. [Lane goes out.] ALG Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility. [Enter Lane.] LANE Mr. Ernest Worthing. [Enter Jack.] [Lane goes out.] ALG How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town? JACK Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy! ALG [Stiffly.] I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock. Where have you been since last Thursday? JACK [Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country. ALG What on earth do you do there? JACK [Pulling off his gloves.] |
