The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde

Author:Oscar Wilde
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781101078020
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-18T21:09:22+00:00

(Enter LORD DARLINGTON, MR. DUMBY, LORD WINDERMERE, LORD AUGUSTUS LORTON, and MR. CECIL GRAHAM.)

DUMBY. What a nuisance their turning us out of the club at this hour! It’s only two o’clock. (Sinks into a chair.) The lively part of the evening is only just beginning. (Yawns and closes his eyes.)

LORD WINDERMERE. It is very good of you, Lord Darlington, allowing Augustus to force our company on you, but I’m afraid I can’t stay long.

LORD DARLINGTON. Really! I am so sorry! You’ll take a cigar, won’t you?

LORD WINDERMERE. Thanks!) (Sits down.)

LORD AUGUSTUS (to LORD WINDERMERE). My dear boy, you must not dream of going. I have a great deal to talk to you about of demmed importance, too. (Sits down with him at L. table.)

CECIL GRAHAM. Oh, we all know what that is! Tuppy can’t talk about anything but Mrs. Erlynne!

LORD WINDERMERE. Well, that is no business of yours, is it, Cecil?

CECIL GRAHAM. None. That is why it interests me. My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people’s.

LORD DARLINGTON. Have something to drink, you fellows. Cecil, you’ll have a whisky and soda?

CECIL GRAHAM. Thanks. (Goes to the table with LORD DARLINGTON.) Mrs. Erlynne looked very handsome tonight, didn’t she?

LORD DARLINGTON. I am not one of her admirers. CECIL GRAHAM. I usedn’t to be, but I am now. Why, she actually made me introduce her to poor dear Aunt Caroline. I believe she is going to lunch there.

LORD DARLINGTON (in surprise). No?

CECIL GRAHAM. She is, really.

LORD DARLINGTON. Excuse me, you fellows. I’m going away to-morrow. And I have to write a few letters. (Goes to writing table and sits down.)

DUMBY. Clever woman, Mrs. Erlynne.

CECIL GRAHAM. Hallo, Dumby! I thought you were asleep.

DUMBY. I am, I usually am!

LORD AUGUSTUS. A very clever woman. Knows perfectly well what a demmed fool I am—knows it as well as I do myself. (CECIL GRAHAM comes towards him, laughing). Ah! you may laugh, my boy, but it is a great thing to come across a woman who thoroughly understands one.

DUMBY. It is an awfully dangerous thing. They always end by marrying one.

CECIL GRAHAM. But I thought, Tuppy, you were never going to see her again. Yes, you told me so yesterday evening at the club. You said you’d heard—(Whispering to him.)

LORD AUGUSTUS. Oh, she’s explained that.

CECIL GRAHAM. And the Wiesbaden affair?

LORD AUGUSTUS. She’s explained that, too.

DUMBY. And her income, Tuppy? Has she explained that?

LORD AUGUSTUS (in a very serious voice). She’s going to explain that to-morrow. (CECIL GRAHAM goes back to c. table.)

DUMBY. Awfully commercial, women now-a-days. Our grandmothers threw their caps over the mills, of course, but, by Jove, their granddaughters only throw their caps over mills that can raise the wind for them.

LORD AUGUSTUS. You want to make her out a wicked woman. She is not!

CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! Wicked women bother one. Good women bore me. That is the only difference between them.

LORD DARLINGTON (puffing a cigar). Mrs. Erlynne has a future before her.

DUMBY. Mrs. Erlynne has a past before her.

LORD AUGUSTUS.

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