Act II

Next day at 11 a.m. Higgins's laboratory in Wimpole Street. It

is a room on the first floor, looking on the street, and was

meant for the drawing-room. The double doors are in the middle of

the back hall; and persons entering find in the corner to their

right two tall file cabinets at right angles to one another

against the walls. In this corner stands a flat writing-table, on

which are a phonograph, a laryngoscope, a row of tiny organ pipes

with a bellows, a set of lamp chimneys for singing flames with

burners attached to a gas plug in the wall by an indiarubber

tube, several tuning-forks of different sizes, a life-size image

of half a human head, showing in section the vocal organs, and a

box containing a supply of wax cylinders for the phonograph.

Further down the room, on the same side, is a fireplace, with a

comfortable leather-covered easy-chair at the side of the hearth

nearest the door, and a coal-scuttle. There is a clock on the

mantelpiece. Between the fireplace and the phonograph table is a

stand for newspapers.

On the other side of the central door, to the left of the

visitor, is a cabinet of shallow drawers. On it is a telephone

and the telephone directory. The corner beyond, and most of the

side wall, is occupied by a grand piano, with the keyboard at the

end furthest from the door, and a bench for the player extending

the full length of the keyboard. On the piano is a dessert dish

heaped with fruit and sweets, mostly chocolates.

The middle of the room is clear. Besides the easy chair, the

piano bench, and two chairs at the phonograph table, there is one

stray chair. It stands near the fireplace. On the walls,

engravings; mostly Piranesis and mezzotint portraits. No

paintings.

Pickering is seated at the table, putting down some cards and a

tuning-fork which he has been using. Higgins is standing up near

him, closing two or three file drawers which are hanging out. He

appears in the morning light as a robust, vital, appetizing sort

of man of forty or thereabouts, dressed in a professional-looking

black frock-coat with a white linen collar and black silk tie. He

is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently

interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific

subject, and careless about himself and other people, including

their feelings. He is, in fact, but for his years and size,

rather like a very impetuous baby "taking notice" eagerly and

loudly, and requiring almost as much watching to keep him out of

unintended mischief. His manner varies from genial bullying when

he is in a good humor to stormy petulance when anything goes

wrong; but he is so entirely frank and void of malice that he

remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.

HIGGINS [as he shuts the last drawer] Well, I think that's the

whole show.

PICKERING. It's really amazing. I haven't taken half of it in,

you know.

HIGGINS. Would you like to go over any of it again?

PICKERING [rising and coming to the fireplace, where he plants

himself with his back to the fire] No, thank you; not now. I'm

quite done up for this morning.

HIGGINS [following him, and standing beside him on his left]

Tired of listening to sounds?

PICKERING. Yes. It's a fearful strain. I rather fancied myself

because I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but

your hundred and thirty beat me. I can't hear a bit of difference

between most of them.

HIGGINS [chuckling, and going over to the piano to eat sweets]

Oh, that comes with practice. You hear no difference at first;

but you keep on listening, and presently you find they're all as

different as A from B. [Mrs. Pearce looks in: she is Higgins's

housekeeper] What's the matter?

MRS. PEARCE [hesitating, evidently perplexed] A young woman wants

to see you, sir.

HIGGINS. A young woman! What does she want?

MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, she says you'll be glad to see her when

you know what she's come about. She's quite a common girl, sir.

Very common indeed. I should have sent her away, only I thought

perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines. I hope I've

not done wrong; but really you see such queer people sometimes—

you'll excuse me, I'm sure, sir—

HIGGINS. Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Pearce. Has she an

interesting accent?

MRS. PEARCE. Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I don't know

how you can take an interest in it.

HIGGINS [to Pickering] Let's have her up. Show her up, Mrs.

Pearce [he rushes across to his working table and picks out a

cylinder to use on the phonograph].

MRS. PEARCE [only half resigned to it] Very well, sir. It's for

you to say. [She goes downstairs].

HIGGINS. This is rather a bit of luck. I'll show you how I make

records. We'll set her talking; and I'll take it down first in

Bell's visible Speech; then in broad Romic; and then we'll get

her on the phonograph so that you can turn her on as often as you

like with the written transcript before you.

MRS. PEARCE [returning] This is the young woman, sir.

The flower girl enters in state. She has a hat with three ostrich

feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red. She has a nearly clean

apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos

of this deplorable figure, with its innocent vanity and

consequential air, touches Pickering, who has already

straightened himself in the presence of Mrs. Pearce. But as to

Higgins, the only distinction he makes between men and women is

that when he is neither bullying nor exclaiming to the heavens

against some featherweight cross, he coaxes women as a child

coaxes its nurse when it wants to get anything out of her.

HIGGINS [brusquely, recognizing her with unconcealed

disappointment, and at once, baby-like, making an intolerable

grievance of it] Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night.

She's no use: I've got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove

lingo; and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. [To the

girl] Be off with you: I don't want you.

THE FLOWER GIRL. Don't you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I

come for yet. [To Mrs. Pearce, who is waiting at the door for

further instruction] Did you tell him I come in a taxi?

MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like

Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, we are proud! He ain't above giving lessons,

not him: I heard him say so. Well, I ain't come here to ask for

any compliment; and if my money's not good enough I can go

elsewhere.

HIGGINS. Good enough for what?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Good enough for ye—oo. Now you know, don't you?

I'm come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no

mistake.

HIGGINS [stupent] WELL!!! [Recovering his breath with a gasp]

What do you expect me to say to you?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me

to sit down, I think. Don't I tell you I'm bringing you business?

HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down or

shall we throw her out of the window?

THE FLOWER GIRL [running away in terror to the piano, where she

turns at bay] Ah—ah—ah—ow—ow—ow—oo! [Wounded and

whimpering] I won't be called a baggage when I've offered to pay

like any lady.

Motionless, the two men stare at her from the other side of the

room, amazed.

PICKERING [gently] What is it you want, my girl?

THE FLOWER GIRL. I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of

selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won't

take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach

me. Well, here I am ready to pay him—not asking any favor—and

he treats me as if I was dirt.

MRS. PEARCE. How can you be such a foolish ignorant girl as to

think you could afford to pay Mr. Higgins?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Why shouldn't I? I know what lessons cost as

well as you do; and I'm ready to pay.

HIGGINS. How much?

THE FLOWER GIRL [coming back to him, triumphant] Now you're

talking! I thought you'd come off it when you saw a chance of

getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night.

[Confidentially] You'd had a drop in, hadn't you?

HIGGINS [peremptorily] Sit down.

THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, if you're going to make a compliment of it—

HIGGINS [thundering at her] Sit down.

MRS. PEARCE [severely] Sit down, girl. Do as you're told. [She

places the stray chair near the hearthrug between Higgins and

Pickering, and stands behind it waiting for the girl to sit

down].

THE FLOWER GIRL. Ah—ah—ah—ow—ow—oo! [She stands, half

rebellious, half bewildered].

PICKERING [very courteous] Won't you sit down?

LIZA [coyly] Don't mind if I do. [She sits down. Pickering

returns to the hearthrug].

HIGGINS. What's your name?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Liza Doolittle.

HIGGINS [declaiming gravely]

Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess,

They went to the woods to get a birds nes':

PICKERING. They found a nest with four eggs in it:

HIGGINS. They took one apiece, and left three in it.

They laugh heartily at their own wit.

LIZA. Oh, don't be silly.

MRS. PEARCE. You mustn't speak to the gentleman like that.

LIZA. Well, why won't he speak sensible to me?

HIGGINS. Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me

for the lessons?

LIZA. Oh, I know what's right. A lady friend of mine gets French

lessons for eighteenpence an hour from a real French gentleman.

Well, you wouldn't have the face to ask me the same for teaching

me my own language as you would for French; so I won't give more

than a shilling. Take it or leave it.

HIGGINS [walking up and down the room, rattling his keys and his

cash in his pockets] You know, Pickering, if you consider a

shilling, not as a simple shilling, but as a percentage of this

girl's income, it works out as fully equivalent to sixty or

seventy guineas from a millionaire.

PICKERING. How so?

HIGGINS. Figure it out. A millionaire has about 150 pounds a day.

She earns about half-a-crown.

LIZA [haughtily] Who told you I only—

HIGGINS [continuing] She offers me two-fifths of her day's income

for a lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income for a day

would be somewhere about 60 pounds. It's handsome. By George,

it's enormous! it's the biggest offer I ever had.

LIZA [rising, terrified] Sixty pounds! What are you talking

about? I never offered you sixty pounds. Where would I get—

HIGGINS. Hold your tongue.

LIZA [weeping] But I ain't got sixty pounds. Oh—

MRS. PEARCE. Don't cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going

to touch your money.

HIGGINS. Somebody is going to touch you, with a broomstick, if

you don't stop snivelling. Sit down.

LIZA [obeying slowly] Ah—ah—ah—ow—oo—o! One would think you

was my father.

HIGGINS. If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers

to you. Here [he offers her his silk handkerchief]!

LIZA. What's this for?

HIGGINS. To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that

feels moist. Remember: that's your handkerchief; and that's your

sleeve. Don't mistake the one for the other if you wish to become

a lady in a shop.

Liza, utterly bewildered, stares helplessly at him.

MRS. PEARCE. It's no use talking to her like that, Mr. Higgins:

she doesn't understand you. Besides, you're quite wrong: she

doesn't do it that way at all [she takes the handkerchief].

LIZA [snatching it] Here! You give me that handkerchief. He give

it to me, not to you.

PICKERING [laughing] He did. I think it must be regarded as her

property, Mrs. Pearce.

MRS. PEARCE [resigning herself] Serve you right, Mr. Higgins.

PICKERING. Higgins: I'm interested. What about the ambassador's

garden party? I'll say you're the greatest teacher alive if you

make that good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment

you can't do it. And I'll pay for the lessons.

LIZA. Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain.

HIGGINS [tempted, looking at her] It's almost irresistible. She's

so deliciously low—so horribly dirty—

LIZA [protesting extremely] Ah—ah—ah—ah—ow—ow—oooo!!! I

ain't dirty: I washed my face and hands afore I come, I did.

PICKERING. You're certainly not going to turn her head with

flattery, Higgins.

MRS. PEARCE [uneasy] Oh, don't say that, sir: there's more ways

than one of turning a girl's head; and nobody can do it better

than Mr. Higgins, though he may not always mean it. I do hope,

sir, you won't encourage him to do anything foolish.

HIGGINS [becoming excited as the idea grows on him] What is life

but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them

to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day. I shall

make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.

LIZA [strongly deprecating this view of her] Ah—ah—ah—ow—ow—

oo!

HIGGINS [carried away] Yes: in six months—in three if she has a

good ear and a quick tongue—I'll take her anywhere and pass her

off as anything. We'll start today: now! this moment! Take her

away and clean her, Mrs. Pearce. Monkey Brand, if it won't come

off any other way. Is there a good fire in the kitchen?

MRS. PEARCE [protesting]. Yes; but—

HIGGINS [storming on] Take all her clothes off and burn them.

Ring up Whiteley or somebody for new ones. Wrap her up in brown

paper till they come.

LIZA. You're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of such things.

I'm a good girl, I am; and I know what the like of you are, I do.

HIGGINS. We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young

woman. You've got to learn to behave like a duchess. Take her

away, Mrs. Pearce. If she gives you any trouble wallop her.

LIZA [springing up and running between Pickering and Mrs. Pearce

for protection] No! I'll call the police, I will.

MRS. PEARCE. But I've no place to put her.

HIGGINS. Put her in the dustbin.

LIZA. Ah—ah—ah—ow—ow—oo!

PICKERING. Oh come, Higgins! be reasonable.

MRS. PEARCE [resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins:

really you must. You can't walk over everybody like this.

Higgins, thus scolded, subsides. The hurricane is suceeeded by a

zephyr of amiable surprise.

HIGGINS [with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk

over everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering, I never

had the slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose

is that we should be kind to this poor girl. We must help her to

prepare and fit herself for her new station in life. If I did not

express myself clearly it was because I did not wish to hurt her

delicacy, or yours.

Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.

MRS. PEARCE [to Pickering] Well, did you ever hear anything like

that, sir?

PICKERING [laughing heartily] Never, Mrs. Pearce: never.

HIGGINS [patiently] What's the matter?

MRS. PEARCE. Well, the matter is, sir, that you can't take a girl

up like that as if you were picking up a pebble on the beach.

HIGGINS. Why not?

MRS. PEARCE. Why not! But you don't know anything about her. What

about her parents? She may be married.

LIZA. Garn!

HIGGINS. There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married

indeed! Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn

out drudge of fifty a year after she's married.

LIZA. Who'd marry me?

HIGGINS [suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low

tones in his best elocutionary style] By George, Eliza, the

streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves

for your sake before I've done with you.

MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her.

LIZA [rising and squaring herself determinedly] I'm going away.

He's off his chump, he is. I don't want no balmies teaching me.

HIGGINS [wounded in his tenderest point by her insensibility to

his elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce:

you needn't order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.

LIZA [whimpering] Nah—ow. You got no right to touch me.

MRS. PEARCE. You see now what comes of being saucy. [Indicating

the door] This way, please.

LIZA [almost in tears] I didn't want no clothes. I wouldn't have

taken them [she throws away the handkerchief]. I can buy my own

clothes.

HIGGINS [deftly retrieving the handkerchief and intercepting her

on her reluctant way to the door] You're an ungrateful wicked

girl. This is my return for offering to take you out of the

gutter and dress you beautifully and make a lady of you.

MRS. PEARCE. Stop, Mr. Higgins. I won't allow it. It's you that

are wicked. Go home to your parents, girl; and tell them to take

better care of you.

LIZA. I ain't got no parents. They told me I was big enough to

earn my own living and turned me out.

MRS. PEARCE. Where's your mother?

LIZA. I ain't got no mother. Her that turned me out was my sixth

stepmother. But I done without them. And I'm a good girl, I am.

HIGGINS. Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about?

The girl doesn't belong to anybody—is no use to anybody but me.

[He goes to Mrs. Pearce and begins coaxing]. You can adopt her,

Mrs. Pearce: I'm sure a daughter would be a great amusement to

you. Now don't make any more fuss. Take her downstairs; and—

MRS. PEARCE. But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid

anything? Do be sensible, sir.

HIGGINS. Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the

housekeeping book. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with

money? She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if

you give her money.

LIZA [turning on him] Oh you are a brute. It's a lie: nobody ever

saw the sign of liquor on me. [She goes back to her chair and

plants herself there defiantly].

PICKERING [in good-humored remonstrance] Does it occur to you,

Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?

HIGGINS [looking critically at her] Oh no, I don't think so. Not

any feelings that we need bother about. [Cheerily] Have you,

Eliza?

LIZA. I got my feelings same as anyone else.

HIGGINS [to Pickering, reflectively] You see the difficulty?

PICKERING. Eh? What difficulty?

HIGGINS. To get her to talk grammar. The mere pronunciation is

easy enough.

LIZA. I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.

MRS. PEARCE. Will you please keep to the point, Mr. Higgins. I

want to know on what terms the girl is to be here. Is she to have

any wages? And what is to become of her when you've finished

your teaching? You must look ahead a little.

HIGGINS [impatiently] What's to become of her if I leave her in

the gutter? Tell me that, Mrs. Pearce.

MRS. PEARCE. That's her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Well, when I've done with her, we can throw her back

into the gutter; and then it will be her own business again; so

that's all right.

LIZA. Oh, you've no feeling heart in you: you don't care for

nothing but yourself [she rises and takes the floor resolutely].

Here! I've had enough of this. I'm going [making for the door].

You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought.

HIGGINS [snatching a chocolate cream from the piano, his eyes

suddenly beginning to twinkle with mischief] Have some

chocolates, Eliza.

LIZA [halting, tempted] How do I know what might be in them? I've

heard of girls being drugged by the like of you.

Higgins whips out his penknife; cuts a chocolate in two; puts one

half into his mouth and bolts it; and offers her the other half.

HIGGINS. Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half you eat the

other.

[Liza opens her mouth to retort: he pops the half chocolate into

it]. You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day.

You shall live on them. Eh?

LIZA [who has disposed of the chocolate after being nearly choked

by it] I wouldn't have ate it, only I'm too ladylike to take it

out of my mouth.

HIGGINS. Listen, Eliza. I think you said you came in a taxi.

LIZA. Well, what if I did? I've as good a right to take a taxi as

anyone else.

HIGGINS. You have, Eliza; and in future you shall have as many

taxis as you want. You shall go up and down and round the town in

a taxi every day. Think of that, Eliza.

MRS. PEARCE. Mr. Higgins: you're tempting the girl. It's not

right. She should think of the future.

HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future

when you haven't any future to think of. No, Eliza: do as this

lady does: think of other people's futures; but never think of

your own. Think of chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds.

LIZA. No: I don't want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl,

I am. [She sits down again, with an attempt at dignity].

HIGGINS. You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs.

Pearce. And you shall marry an officer in the Guards, with a

beautiful moustache: the son of a marquis, who will disinherit

him for marrying you, but will relent when he sees your beauty

and goodness—

PICKERING. Excuse me, Higgins; but I really must interfere. Mrs.

Pearce is quite right. If this girl is to put herself in your

hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must

understand thoroughly what she's doing.

HIGGINS. How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything.

Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did,

would we ever do it?

PICKERING. Very clever, Higgins; but not sound sense. [To Eliza]

Miss Doolittle—

LIZA [overwhelmed] Ah—ah—ow—oo!

HIGGINS. There! That's all you get out of Eliza. Ah—ah—ow—oo!

No use explaining. As a military man you ought to know that. Give

her her orders: that's what she wants. Eliza: you are to live

here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully,

like a lady in a florist's shop. If you're good and do whatever

you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots

to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If

you're naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among

the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a

broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham

Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out

you're not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower

of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other

presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall

have a present of seven-and-sixpence to start life with as a lady

in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful

and wicked girl; and the angels will weep for you. [To Pickering]

Now are you satisfied, Pickering? [To Mrs. Pearce] Can I put it

more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pearce?

MRS. PEARCE [patiently] I think you'd better let me speak to the

girl properly in private. I don't know that I can take charge of

her or consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you

don't mean her any harm; but when you get what you call

interested in people's accents, you never think or care what may

happen to them or you. Come with me, Eliza.

HIGGINS. That's all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off

to the bath-room.

LIZA [rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You're a great bully,

you are. I won't stay here if I don't like. I won't let nobody

wallop me.I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn't. I was

never in trouble with the police, not me. I'm a good girl—

MRS. PEARCE. Don't answer back, girl. You don't understand the

gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the way to the door, and

holds it open for Eliza].

LIZA [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I won't go near

the king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off. If I'd

known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn't have come

here. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a

word to him; and I don't owe him nothing; and I don't care; and I

won't be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone

else—

Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza's plaints are no longer

audible. Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits

astride it with his arms on the back.

PICKERING. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man

of good character where women are concerned?

HIGGINS [moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where

women are concerned?

PICKERING. Yes: very frequently.

HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level

of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven't. I

find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she

becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I

find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I

become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you

let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at

one thing and you're driving at another.

PICKERING. At what, for example?

HIGGINB [coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, Lord knows! I

suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants

to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong

track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result

is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east

wind. [He sits down on the bench at the keyboard]. So here I am,

a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.

PICKERING [rising and standing over him gravely] Come, Higgins!

You know what I mean. If I'm to be in this business I shall feel

responsible for that girl. I hope it's understood that no

advantage is to be taken of her position.

HIGGINS. What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to

explain] You see, she'll be a pupil; and teaching would be

impossible unless pupils were sacred. I've taught scores of

American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking

women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of

wood. I might as well be a block of wood. It's—

Mrs. Pearce opens the door. She has Eliza's hat in her hand.

Pickering retires to the easy-chair at the hearth and sits down.

HIGGINS [eagerly] Well, Mrs. Pearce: is it all right?

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] I just wish to trouble you with a word,

if I may, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Yes, certainly. Come in. [She comes forward]. Don't burn

that, Mrs. Pearce. I'll keep it as a curiosity. [He takes the

hat].

MRS. PEARCE. Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise

her not to burn it; but I had better put it in the oven for a

while.

HIGGINS [putting it down hastily on the piano] Oh! thank you.

Well, what have you to say to me?

PICKERING. Am I in the way?

MRS. PEARCE. Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be

very particular what you say before the girl?

HIGGINS [sternly] Of course. I'm always particular about what I

say. Why do you say this to me?

MRS. PEARCE [unmoved] No, sir: you're not at all particular when

you've mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient. Now

it doesn't matter before me: I'm used to it. But you really must

not swear before the girl.

HIGGINS [indignantly] I swear! [Most emphatically] I never swear.

I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?

MRS. PEARCE [stolidly] That's what I mean, sir. You swear a great

deal too much. I don't mind your damning and blasting, and what

the devil and where the devil and who the devil—

HIGGINS. Really! Mrs. Pearce: this language from your lips!

MRS. PEARCE [not to be put off]—but there is a certain word I

must ask you not to use. The girl has just used it herself

because the bath was too hot. It begins with the same letter as

bath. She knows no better: she learnt it at her mother's knee.

But she must not hear it from your lips.

HIGGINS [loftily] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered

it, Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding

an uneasy conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a

moment of extreme and justifiable excitement.

MRS. PEARCE. Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your

boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.

HIGGINS. Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a

poet.

MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you

not to let the girl hear you repeat it.

HIGGINS. Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with

this girl as to personal cleanliness.

HIGGINS. Certainly. Quite right. Most important.

MRS. PEARCE. I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy

in leaving things about.

HIGGINS [going to her solemnly] Just so. I intended to call your

attention to that [He passes on to Pickering, who is enjoying the

conversation immensely]. It is these little things that matter,

Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care

of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [He

comes to anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an

unassailable position].

MRS. PEARCE. Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to

breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as

a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good

as not to eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not

to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean

tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know

you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in the jam only last

week.

HIGGINS [routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the

piano] I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but

surely I don't do them habitually. [Angrily] By the way: my

dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.

MRS. PEARCE. No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe

your fingers—

HIGGINS [yelling] Oh very well, very well: I'll wipe them in my

hair in future.

MRS. PEARCE. I hope you're not offended, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS [shocked at finding himself thought capable of an

unamiable sentiment] Not at all, not at all. You're quite right,

Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is

that all?

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese

dresses you brought from abroad? I really can't put her back into

her old things.

HIGGINS. Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. That's all. [She goes out].

HIGGINS. You know, Pickering, that woman has the most

extraordinary ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of

man. I've never been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous,

like other chaps. And yet she's firmly persuaded that I'm an

arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I can't account

for it.

Mrs. Pearce returns.

MRS. PEARCE. If you please, sir, the trouble's beginning already.

There's a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you.

He says you have his daughter here.

PICKERING [rising] Phew! I say! [He retreats to the hearthrug].

HIGGINS [promptly] Send the blackguard up.

MRS. PEARCE. Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out].

PICKERING. He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.

HIGGINS. Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard.

PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some

trouble with him.

HIGGINS [confidently] Oh no: I think not. If there's any trouble

he shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get

something interesting out of him.

PICKERING. About the girl?

HIGGINS. No. I mean his dialect.

PICKERING. Oh!

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Doolittle, sir. [She admits Doolittle

and retires].

Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the

costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim

covering his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather

interesting features, and seems equally free from fear and

conscience. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a

habit of giving vent to his feelings without reserve. His present

pose is that of wounded honor and stern resolution.

DOOLITTLE [at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is

his man] Professor Higgins?

HIGGINS. Here. Good morning. Sit down.

DOOLITTLE. Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come

about a very serious matter, Governor.

HIGGINS [to Pickering] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I

should think. [Doolittle opens his mouth, amazed. Higgins

continues] What do you want, Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE [menacingly] I want my daughter: that's what I want.

See?

HIGGINS. Of course you do. You're her father, aren't you? You

don't suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I'm glad to see you

have some spark of family feeling left. She's upstairs. Take her

away at once.

DOOLITTLE [rising, fearfully taken aback] What!

HIGGINS. Take her away. Do you suppose I'm going to keep your

daughter for you?

DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this

reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? The

girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [He sits

down again].

HIGGINS. Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and

ask me to teach her how to speak properly so that she could get a

place in a flower-shop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have

been here all the time. [Bullying him] How dare you come here and

attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose.

DOOLITTLE [protesting] No, Governor.

HIGGINS. You must have. How else could you possibly know that she

is here?

DOOLITTLE. Don't take a man up like that, Governor.

HIGGINS. The police shall take you up. This is a plant—a plot to

extort money by threats. I shall telephone for the police [he

goes resolutely to the telephone and opens the directory].

DOOLITTLE. Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to

the gentleman here: have I said a word about money?

HIGGINS [throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle

with a poser] What else did you come for?

DOOLITTLE [sweetly] Well, what would a man come for? Be human,

governor.

HIGGINS [disarmed] Alfred: did you put her up to it?

DOOLITTLE. So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible

oath I ain't seen the girl these two months past.

HIGGINS. Then how did you know she was here?

DOOLITTLE ["most musical, most melancholy"] I'll tell you,

Governor, if you'll only let me get a word in. I'm willing to

tell you. I'm wanting to tell you. I'm waiting to tell you.

HIGGINS. Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of

rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild. "I'm

willing to tell you: I'm wanting to tell you: I'm waiting to tell

you." Sentimental rhetoric! That's the Welsh strain in him. It

also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.

PICKERING. Oh, PLEASE, Higgins: I'm west country myself. [To

Doolittle] How did you know the girl was here if you didn't send

her?

DOOLITTLE. It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the

taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of her landlady, he is. He hung

about on the chance of her giving him another ride home. Well,

she sent him back for her luggage when she heard you was willing

for her to stop here. I met the boy at the corner of Long Acre

and Endell Street.

HIGGINS. Public house. Yes?

DOOLITTLE. The poor man's club, Governor: why shouldn't I?

PICKERING. Do let him tell his story, Higgins.

DOOLITTLE. He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my

feelings and my duty as a father? I says to the boy, "You bring

me the luggage," I says—

PICKERING. Why didn't you go for it yourself?

DOOLITTLE. Landlady wouldn't have trusted me with it, Governor.

She's that kind of woman: you know. I had to give the boy a penny

afore he trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to

her just to oblige you like, and make myself agreeable. That's

all.

HIGGINS. How much luggage?

DOOLITTLE. Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle

of jewelry, and a bird-cage. She said she didn't want no clothes.

What was I to think from that, Governor? I ask you as a parent

what was I to think?

HIGGINS. So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh?

DOOLITTLE [appreciatively: relieved at being understood] Just so,

Governor. That's right.

PICKERING. But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to

take her away?

DOOLITTLE. Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?

HIGGINS [determinedly] You're going to take her away, double

quick. [He crosses to the hearth and rings the bell].

DOOLITTLE [rising] No, Governor. Don't say that. I'm not the man

to stand in my girl's light. Here's a career opening for her, as

you might say; and—

Mrs. Pearce opens the door and awaits orders.

HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza's father. He has come to take

her away. Give her to him. [He goes back to the piano, with an

air of washing his hands of the whole affair].

DOOLITTLE. No. This is a misunderstanding. Listen here—

MRS. PEARCE. He can't take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he? You

told me to burn her clothes.

DOOLITTLE. That's right. I can't carry the girl through the

streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.

HIGGINS. You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take

your daughter. If she has no clothes go out and buy her some.

DOOLITTLE [desperate] Where's the clothes she come in? Did I burn

them or did your missus here?

MRS. PEARCE. I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for

some clothes for your girl. When they come you can take her away.

You can wait in the kitchen. This way, please.

Doolittle, much troubled, accompanies her to the door; then

hesitates; finally turns confidentially to Higgins.

DOOLITTLE. Listen here, Governor. You and me is men of the world,

ain't we?

HIGGINS. Oh! Men of the world, are we? You'd better go, Mrs.

Pearce.

MRS. PEARCE. I think so, indeed, sir. [She goes, with dignity].

PICKERING. The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.

DOOLITTLE [to Pickering] I thank you, Governor. [To Higgins, who

takes refuge on the piano bench, a little overwhelmed by the

proximity of his visitor; for Doolittle has a professional flavor

of dust about him]. Well, the truth is, I've taken a sort of

fancy to you, Governor; and if you want the girl, I'm not so set

on having her back home again but what I might be open to an

arrangement. Regarded in the light of a young woman, she's a fine

handsome girl. As a daughter she's not worth her keep; and so I

tell you straight. All I ask is my rights as a father; and you're

the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I

can see you're one of the straight sort, Governor. Well, what's a

five pound note to you? And what's Eliza to me? [He returns to

his chair and sits down judicially].

PICKERING. I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr.

Higgins's intentions are entirely honorable.

DOOLITTLE. Course they are, Governor. If I thought they wasn't,

I'd ask fifty.

HIGGINS [revolted] Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that

you would sell your daughter for 50 pounds?