ACT 1 SCENE 3.5 Flashcards
JACK: [As if he hasn’t noticed Lane before.] Why is your butler recording this conversation?
Oh, Lane? They are merely keeping my diary. Go on, we’re listening.
JACK: Well, my name is Earnest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.
Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you ‘her dear uncle’.
Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once!
[Brief pause. Bangs table]
Now! Go on! Tell me the whole thing-
I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now!
JACK: Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?
I’ll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Earnest in town and Jack in the country.
JACK: Well, produce my cigarette case first.
(Scoff) Here it is.
Now produce your explanation and pray… make it improbable.
JACK: … Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate… lives at my place in the country.
Where is that place in the country, by the way?
JACK: That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited…
I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire.
I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shropshire on two separate occasions.
Now, go on. Why are you Earnest in town and Jack in the country?
JACK: …
… That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Thank you, Lane. That will be all.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
[Pause. In awe.] And you really are a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist.
[Genuine respect.] You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
