Lane. Yes, sir. [Lane goes out.]

Jack. Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this
time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing
frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly
offering a large reward.

Algernon. Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more
than usually hard up.

Jack. There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing
is found.

[Enter Lane with the cigarette case on a salver. Algernon takes it
at once. Lane goes out.]

Algernon. I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say.
[Opens case and examines it.] However, it makes no matter, for, now
that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn't
yours after all.

Jack. Of course it's mine. [Moving to him.] You have seen me with
it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is
written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private
cigarette case.

Algernon. Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what
one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern
culture depends on what one shouldn't read.