for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be
able to dine with you at Willis's to-night, for I have been really
engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

Jack. I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night.

Algernon. I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out
invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so
much as not receiving invitations.

Jack. You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta.

Algernon. I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the
kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is
quite enough to dine with one's own relations. In the second place,
whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the
family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the
third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to,
to-night. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts
with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very
pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of
thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London
who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks
so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public. Besides,
now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I naturally want to
talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the rules.

Jack. I'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am
going to kill my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case.
Cecily is a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore.