Algernon monologue from The Importance of Being Earnest

Algernon’s monologue

I haven't the smallest intention of dining with Aunt Augusta. To begin with, I dined thereon Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one's own relations. In thesecond 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 perfectlywell 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.

Public domain text.