Lady Bracknell. A hand-bag?

Jack. [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag--
a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it--an
ordinary hand-bag in fact.

Lady Bracknell. In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas,
Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?

Jack. In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him
in mistake for his own.

Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station?

Jack. Yes. The Brighton line.

Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I
feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born,
or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not,
seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of
family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French
Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement
led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was
found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a
social indiscretion--has probably, indeed, been used for that
purpose before now-but it could hardly be regarded as an assured
basis for a recognised position in good society.

Jack. May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need
hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's