JACK. I wanted to be engaged to Gwendolen, that is all. I love her. ALGERNON. Well, I simply wanted to be engaged to Cecily. I adore her. JACK. There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew. ALGERNON. I don’t think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united. JACK. Well, that is no business of yours. ALGERNON. If it was my business, I wouldn’t talk about it. [Begins to eat muffins.] It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties. JACK. How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless. ALGERNON. Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them. JACK. I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances. ALGERNON. When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. [Rising.] JACK. [Rising.] Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. [Takes muffins from Algernon.] ALGERNON. [Offering tea-cake.] I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake. JACK. Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden. ALGERNON. But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins. JACK. I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing. ALGERNON. That may be. But the muffins are the same. [He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack.] JACK. Algy, I wish to goodness you would go. ALGERNON. You can’t possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It’s absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that. Besides I have just made arrangements with Dr. Chasuble to be christened at a quarter to six under the name of Ernest. JACK. My dear fellow, the sooner you give up that nonsense the better. I made arrangements this morning with Dr. Chasuble to be christened myself at 5.30, and I naturally will take the name of Ernest. Gwendolen would wish it. We can’t both be christened Ernest. It’s absurd. Besides, I have a perfect right to be christened if I like. There is no evidence at all that I have ever been christened by anybody. I should think it extremely probable I never was, and so does Dr. Chasuble. It is entirely different in your case. You have been christened already. ALGERNON. Yes, but I have not been christened for years. JACK. Yes, but you have been christened. That is the important thing.