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?

HIGGINS [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?

DOOLITTLE. Not in a general way I wouldn't; but to oblige a
gentleman like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you.

PICKERING. Have you no morals, man?

DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could
you if you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know.
But if Liza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?

HIGGINS [troubled] I don't know what to do, Pickering. There can
be no question that as a matter of morals it's a positive crime
to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough
justice in his claim.

DOOLITTLE. That's it, Governor. That's all I say. A father's
heart, as it were.

PICKERING. Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly
right--

DOOLITTLE. Don't say that, Governor. Don't look at it that way.
What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the
undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a
man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the
time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it,
it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't
have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's
that ever got money out of six different charities in one week
for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a
deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and
I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a
thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I
feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as
they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an
excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two
gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with
you. I ain't pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I
mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that's the truth.
Will you take advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the
price of his own daughter what he's brought up and fed and
clothed by the sweat of his brow until she's growed big enough to
be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable?
I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

HIGGINS [rising, and going over to Pickering] Pickering: if we
were to take this man in hand for three months, he could choose
between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

PICKERING. What do you say to that, Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. I've heard all the
preachers and all the prime ministers--for I'm a thinking man and
game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the
other amusements--and I tell you it's a dog's life anyway you
look at it. Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in
society with another, it's--it's--well, it's the only one that
has any ginger in it, to my taste.

HIGGINS. I suppose we must give him a fiver.

PICKERING. He'll make a bad use of it, I'm afraid.

DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, so help me I won't. Don't you be
afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There
won't be a penny of it left by Monday: I'll have to go to work
same as if I'd never had it. It won't pauperize me, you bet. Just
one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to
ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to
think it's not been throwed away. You couldn't spend it better.

HIGGINS [taking out his pocket book and coming between Doolittle
and the piano] This is irresistible. Let's give him ten. [He
offers two notes to the dustman].

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor. She wouldn't have the heart to spend
ten; and perhaps I shouldn't neither. Ten pounds is a lot of
money: it makes a man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to
happiness. You give me what I ask you, Governor: not a penny
more, and not a penny less.

PICKERING. Why don't you marry that missus of yours? I rather
draw the line at encouraging that sort of immorality.

DOOLITTLE. Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I'm willing. It's
me that suffers by it. I've no hold on her. I got to be agreeable
to her. I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes
something sinful. I'm a slave to that woman, Governor, just
because I'm not her lawful husband. And she knows it too. Catch
her marrying me! Take my advice, Governor: marry Eliza while
she's young and don't know no better. If you don't you'll be
sorry for it after. If you do, she'll be sorry for it after; but
better you than her, because you're a man, and she's only a woman
and don't know how to be happy anyhow.

HIGGINS. Pickering: if we listen to this man another minute, we
shall have no convictions left. [To Doolittle] Five pounds I
think you said.

DOOLITTLE. Thank you kindly, Governor.

HIGGINS. You're sure you won't take ten?

DOOLITTLE. Not now. Another time, Governor.

HIGGINS [handing him a five-pound note] Here you are.

DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Governor. Good morning.

[He hurries to the door, anxious to get away with his booty. When
he opens it he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean
young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed
cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pearce is with
her. He gets out of her way deferentially and apologizes]. Beg
pardon, miss.

THE JAPANESE LADY. Garn! Don't you know your own daughter?

DOOLITTLE   {exclaiming  Bly me! it's Eliza!
HIGGINS     {simul-      What's that! This!
PICKERING   {taneously   By Jove!

LIZA. Don't I look silly?

HIGGINS. Silly?

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Now, Mr. Higgins, please don't say
anything to make the girl conceited about herself.

HIGGINS [conscientiously] Oh! Quite right, Mrs. Pearce. [To
Eliza] Yes: damned silly.

MRS. PEARCE. Please, sir.

HIGGINS [correcting himself] I mean extremely silly.

LIZA. I should look all right with my hat on. [She takes up her
hat; puts it on; and walks across the room to the fireplace with
a fashionable air].

HIGGINS. A new fashion, by George! And it ought to look horrible!

DOOLITTLE [with fatherly pride] Well, I never thought she'd clean
up as good looking as that, Governor. She's a credit to me, ain't
she?

LIZA. I tell you, it's easy to clean up here. Hot and cold water
on tap, just as much as you like, there is. Woolly towels, there
is; and a towel horse so hot, it burns your fingers. Soft brushes
to scrub yourself, and a wooden bowl of soap smelling like
primroses. Now I know why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat
for them. Wish they saw what it is for the like of me!

HIGGINS. I'm glad the bath-room met with your approval.

LIZA. It didn't: not all of it; and I don't care who hears me say
it. Mrs. Pearce knows.

HIGGINS. What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?

MRS. PEARCE [blandly] Oh, nothing, sir. It doesn't matter.

LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to
look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.

HIGGINS. Over what?

MRS. PEARCE. Over the looking-glass, sir.

HIGGINS. Doolittle: you have brought your daughter up too
strictly.

DOOLITTLE. Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her
a lick of a strap now and again. Don't put it on me, Governor.
She ain't accustomed to it, you see: that's all. But she'll soon
pick up your free-and-easy ways.

LIZA. I'm a good girl, I am; and I won't pick up no free and easy
ways.

HIGGINS. Eliza: if you say again that you're a good girl, your
father shall take you home.

LIZA. Not him. You don't know my father. All he come here for was
to touch you for some money to get drunk on.

DOOLITTLE. Well, what else would I want money for? To put into
the plate in church, I suppose. [She puts out her tongue at him.
He is so incensed by this that Pickering presently finds it
necessary to step between them]. Don't you give me none of your
lip; and don't let me hear you giving this gentleman any of it
neither, or you'll hear from me about it. See?

HIGGINS. Have you any further advice to give her before you go,
Doolittle? Your blessing, for instance.

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor: I ain't such a mug as to put up my
children to all I know myself. Hard enough to hold them in
without that. If you want Eliza's mind improved, Governor, you do
it yourself with a strap. So long, gentlemen. [He turns to go].

HIGGINS [impressively] Stop. You'll come regularly to see your
daughter. It's your duty, you know. My brother is a clergyman;
and he could help you in your talks with her.

DOOLITTLE [evasively] Certainly. I'll come, Governor. Not just
this week, because I have a job at a distance. But later on you
may depend on me. Afternoon, gentlemen. Afternoon, ma'am. [He
takes off his hat to Mrs. Pearce, who disdains the salutation and
goes out. He winks at Higgins, thinking him probably a fellow
sufferer from Mrs. Pearce's difficult disposition, and follows
her].

LIZA. Don't you believe the old liar. He'd as soon you set a
bull-dog on him as a clergyman. You won't see him again in a
hurry.

HIGGINS. I don't want to, Eliza. Do you?

LIZA. Not me. I don't want never to see him again, I don't. He's
a disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead of working at
his trade.

PICKERING. What is his trade, Eliza?

LIZA. Talking money out of other people's pockets into his own.
His proper trade's a navvy; and he works at it sometimes too--for
exercise--and earns good money at it. Ain't you going to call me
Miss Doolittle any more?

PICKERING. I beg your pardon, Miss Doolittle. It was a slip of
the tongue.

LIZA. Oh, I don't mind; only it sounded so genteel. I should just
like to take a taxi to the corner of Tottenham Court Road and get
out there and tell it to wait for me, just to put the girls in
their place a bit. I wouldn't speak to them, you know.

PICKERING. Better wait til we get you something really
fashionable.

HIGGINS. Besides, you shouldn't cut your old friends now that you
have risen in the world. That's what we call snobbery.

LIZA. You don't call the like of them my friends now, I should
hope. They've took it out of me often enough with their ridicule
when they had the chance; and now I mean to get a bit of my own
back. But if I'm to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should
like to have some. Mrs. Pearce says you're going to give me some
to wear in bed at night different to what I wear in the daytime;
but it do seem a waste of money when you could get something to
show. Besides, I never could fancy changing into cold things on a
winter night.

MRS. PEARCE [coming back] Now, Eliza. The new things have come
for you to try on.

LIZA. Ah--ow--oo--ooh! [She rushes out].

MRS. PEARCE [following her] Oh, don't rush about like that, girl
[She shuts the door behind her].

HIGGINS. Pickering: we have taken on a stiff job.

PICKERING [with conviction] Higgins: we have.




ACT III

It is Mrs. Higgins's at-home day. Nobody has yet arrived. Her
drawing-room, in a flat on Chelsea embankment, has three windows
looking on the river; and the ceiling is not so lofty as it would
be in an older house of the same pretension. The windows are
open, giving access to a balcony with flowers in pots. If you
stand with your face to the windows, you have the fireplace on
your left and the door in the right-hand wall close to the corner
nearest the windows.

Mrs. Higgins was brought up on Morris and Burne Jones; and her
room, which is very unlike her son's room in Wimpole Street, is
not crowded with furniture and little tables and nicknacks. In
the middle of the room there is a big ottoman; and this, with the
carpet, the Morris wall-papers, and the Morris chintz window
curtains and brocade covers of the ottoman and its cushions,
supply all the ornament, and are much too handsome to be hidden
by odds and ends of useless things. A few good oil-paintings from
the exhibitions in the Grosvenor Gallery thirty years ago (the
Burne Jones, not the Whistler side of them) are on the walls. The
only landscape is a Cecil Lawson on the scale of a Rubens. There
is a portrait of Mrs. Higgins as she was when she defied fashion
in her youth in one of the beautiful Rossettian costumes which,
when caricatured by people who did not understand, led to the
absurdities of popular estheticism in the eighteen-seventies.

In the corner diagonally opposite the door Mrs. Higgins, now over
sixty and long past taking the trouble to dress out of the
fashion, sits writing at an elegantly simple writing-table with a
bell button within reach of her hand. There is a Chippendale
chair further back in the room between her and the window nearest
her side. At the other side of the room, further forward, is an
Elizabethan chair roughly carved in the taste of Inigo Jones. On
the same side a piano in a decorated case. The corner between the
fireplace and the window is occupied by a divan cushioned in
Morris chintz.

It is between four and five in the afternoon.

The door is opened violently; and Higgins enters with his hat on.

MRS. HIGGINS [dismayed] Henry [scolding him]! What are you doing
here to-day? It is my at home day: you promised not to come. [As
he bends to kiss her, she takes his hat off, and presents it to
him].

HIGGINS. Oh bother! [He throws the hat down on the table].

MRS. HIGGINS. Go home at once.

HIGGINS [kissing her] I know, mother. I came on purpose.

MRS. HIGGINS. But you mustn't. I'm serious, Henry. You offend all
my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you.

HIGGINS. Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people don't
mind. [He sits on the settee].

MRS. HIGGINS. Oh! don't they? Small talk indeed! What about your
large talk? Really, dear, you mustn't stay.

HIGGINS. I must. I've a job for you. A phonetic job.

MRS. HIGGINS. No use, dear. I'm sorry; but I can't get round your
vowels; and though I like to get pretty postcards in your patent
shorthand, I always have to read the copies in ordinary writing
you so thoughtfully send me.

HIGGINS. Well, this isn't a phonetic job.

MRS. HIGGINS. You said it was.

HIGGINS. Not your part of it. I've picked up a girl.

MRS. HIGGINS. Does that mean that some girl has picked you up?

HIGGINS. Not at all. I don't mean a love affair.

MRS. HIGGINS. What a pity!

HIGGINS. Why?

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you never fall in love with anyone under
forty-five. When will you discover that there are some rather
nice-looking young women about?

HIGGINS. Oh, I can't be bothered with young women. My idea of a
loveable woman is something as like you as possible. I shall
never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some
habits lie too deep to be changed. [Rising abruptly and walking
about, jingling his money and his keys in his trouser pockets]
Besides, they're all idiots.

MRS. HIGGINS. Do you know what you would do if you really loved
me, Henry?

HIGGINS. Oh bother! What? Marry, I suppose?

MRS. HIGGINS. No. Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your
pockets. [With a gesture of despair, he obeys and sits down
again]. That's a good boy. Now tell me about the girl.

HIGGINS. She's coming to see you.

MRS. HIGGINS. I don't remember asking her.

HIGGINS. You didn't. I asked her. If you'd known her you wouldn't
have asked her.

MRS. HIGGINS. Indeed! Why?

HIGGINS. Well, it's like this. She's a common flower girl. I
picked her off the kerbstone.

MRS. HIGGINS. And invited her to my at-home!

HIGGINS [rising and coming to her to coax her] Oh, that'll be all
right. I've taught her to speak properly; and she has strict
orders as to her behavior. She's to keep to two subjects: the
weather and everybody's health--Fine day and How do you do, you
know--and not to let herself go on things in general. That will
be safe.

MRS. HIGGINS. Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides!
perhaps about our outsides! How could you be so silly, Henry?

HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, she must talk about something. [He
controls himself and sits down again]. Oh, she'll be all right:
don't you fuss. Pickering is in it with me. I've a sort of bet on
that I'll pass her off as a duchess in six months. I started on
her some months ago; and she's getting on like a house on fire. I
shall win my bet. She has a quick ear; and she's been easier to
teach than my middle-class pupils because she's had to learn a
complete new language. She talks English almost as you talk
French.

MRS. HIGGINS. That's satisfactory, at all events.

HIGGINS. Well, it is and it isn't.

MRS. HIGGINS. What does that mean?

HIGGINS. You see, I've got her pronunciation all right; but you
have to consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she
pronounces; and that's where--

They are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill. [She withdraws].

HIGGINS. Oh Lord! [He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and
makes for the door; but before he reaches it his mother
introduces him].

Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who
sheltered from the rain in Covent Garden. The mother is well
bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means.
The daughter has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in
society: the bravado of genteel poverty.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins] How do you do? [They shake
hands].

MISS EYNSFORD HILL. How d'you do? [She shakes].

MRS. HIGGINS [introducing] My son Henry.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet
you, Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS [glumly, making no movement in her direction] Delighted.
[He backs against the piano and bows brusquely].

Miss EYNSFORD HILL [going to him with confident familiarity] How
do you do?

HIGGINS [staring at her] I've seen you before somewhere. I
haven't the ghost of a notion where; but I've heard your voice.
[Drearily] It doesn't matter. You'd better sit down.

MRS. HIGGINS. I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no
manners. You mustn't mind him.

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [gaily] I don't. [She sits in the Elizabethan
chair].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [a little bewildered] Not at all. [She sits on
the ottoman between her daughter and Mrs. Higgins, who has turned
her chair away from the writing-table].

HIGGINS. Oh, have I been rude? I didn't mean to be. [He goes to
the central window, through which, with his back to the company,
he contemplates the river and the flowers in Battersea Park on
the opposite bank as if they were a frozen dessert.]

The parlor-maid returns, ushering in Pickering. 

THE PARLOR-MAID. Colonel Pickering [She withdraws].

PICKERING. How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?

MRS. HIGGINS. So glad you've come. Do you know Mrs. Eynsford
Hill--Miss Eynsford Hill? [Exchange of bows. The Colonel brings
the Chippendale chair a little forward between Mrs. Hill and Mrs.
Higgins, and sits down].

PICKERING. Has Henry told you what we've come for?

HIGGINS [over his shoulder] We were interrupted: damn it!

MRS. HIGGINS. Oh Henry, Henry, really!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [half rising] Are we in the way?

MRS. HIGGINS [rising and making her sit down again] No, no. You
couldn't have come more fortunately: we want you to meet a friend
of ours.

HIGGINS [turning hopefully] Yes, by George! We want two or three
people. You'll do as well as anybody else.

The parlor-maid returns, ushering Freddy.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Mr. Eynsford Hill.

HIGGINS [almost audibly, past endurance] God of Heaven! another
of them.

FREDDY [shaking hands with Mrs. Higgins] Ahdedo?

MRS. HIGGINS. Very good of you to come. [Introducing] Colonel
Pickering.

FREDDY [bowing] Ahdedo?

MRS. HIGGINS. I don't think you know my son, Professor Higgins.

FREDDY [going to Higgins] Ahdedo?

HIGGINS [looking at him much as if he were a pickpocket] I'll
take my oath I've met you before somewhere. Where was it?

FREDDY. I don't think so.

HIGGINS [resignedly] It don't matter, anyhow. Sit down. He shakes
Freddy's hand, and almost slings him on the ottoman with his face
to the windows; then comes round to the other side of it.

HIGGINS. Well, here we are, anyhow! [He sits down on the ottoman
next Mrs. Eynsford Hill, on her left.] And now, what the devil
are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: you are the life and soul of the Royal
Society's soirees; but really you're rather trying on more
commonplace occasions.

HIGGINS. Am I? Very sorry. [Beaming suddenly] I suppose I am, you
know. [Uproariously] Ha, ha!

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [who considers Higgins quite eligible
matrimonially] I sympathize. I haven't any small talk. If people
would only be frank and say what they really think!

HIGGINS [relapsing into gloom] Lord forbid!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [taking up her daughter's cue] But why?

HIGGINS. What they think they ought to think is bad enough, Lord
knows; but what they really think would break up the whole show.
Do you suppose it would be really agreeable if I were to come out
now with what I really think?

MISS EYNSFORD HILL [gaily] Is it so very cynical?

HIGGINS. Cynical! Who the dickens said it was cynical? I mean it
wouldn't be decent.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [seriously] Oh! I'm sure you don't mean that,
Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS. You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed
to be civilized and cultured--to know all about poetry and
philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us
know even the meanings of these names? [To Miss Hill] What do you
know of poetry? [To Mrs. Hill] What do you know of science?
[Indicating Freddy] What does he know of art or science or
anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of
philosophy?

MRS. HIGGINS [warningly] Or of manners, Henry?

THE PARLOR-MAID [opening the door] Miss Doolittle. [She
withdraws].

HIGGINS [rising hastily and running to Mrs. Higgins] Here she is,
mother. [He stands on tiptoe and makes signs over his mother's
head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is her hostess].

Eliza, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression of such
remarkable distinction and beauty as she enters that they all
rise, quite flustered. Guided by Higgins's signals, she comes to
Mrs. Higgins with studied grace.

LIZA [speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and
great beauty of tone] How do you do, Mrs. Higgins? [She gasps
slightly in making sure of the H in Higgins, but is quite
successful]. Mr. Higgins told me I might come.

MRS. HIGGINS [cordially] Quite right: I'm very glad indeed to see
you.

PICKERING. How do you do, Miss Doolittle?

LIZA [shaking hands with him] Colonel Pickering, is it not?

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I feel sure we have met before, Miss
Doolittle. I remember your eyes.

LIZA. How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in
the place just left vacant by Higgins].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [introducing] My daughter Clara.

LIZA. How do you do?

CLARA [impulsively] How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman
beside Eliza, devouring her with her eyes].

FREDDY [coming to their side of the ottoman] I've certainly had
the pleasure.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [introducing] My son Freddy.

LIZA. How do you do?

Freddy bows and sits down in the Elizabethan chair, infatuated.

HIGGINS [suddenly] By George, yes: it all comes back to me! [They
stare at him]. Covent Garden! [Lamentably] What a damned thing!

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry, please! [He is about to sit on the edge of
the table]. Don't sit on my writing-table: you'll break it.

HIGGINS [sulkily] Sorry.

He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the
fire-irons on his way; extricating himself with muttered
imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey by throwing
himself so impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it.
Mrs. Higgins looks at him, but controls herself and says nothing.

A long and painful pause ensues.

MRS. HIGGINS [at last, conversationally] Will it rain, do you
think?

LIZA. The shallow depression in the west of these islands is
likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no
indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.

FREDDY. Ha! ha! how awfully funny!

LIZA. What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.

FREDDY. Killing!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I'm sure I hope it won't turn cold. There's
so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family
regularly every spring.

LIZA [darkly] My aunt died of influenza: so they said.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically]!!!

LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it's my belief they done the
old woman in.

MRS. HIGGINS [puzzled] Done her in?

LIZA. Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza?
She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw
her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all
thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her
throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the
spoon.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [startled] Dear me!

LIZA [piling up the indictment] What call would a woman with that
strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new
straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and
what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. What does doing her in mean?

HIGGINS [hastily] Oh, that's the new small talk. To do a person
in means to kill them.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Eliza, horrified] You surely don't believe
that your aunt was killed?

LIZA. Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a
hat-pin, let alone a hat.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. But it can't have been right for your father
to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed
her.

LIZA. Not her. Gin was mother's milk to her. Besides, he'd poured
so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Do you mean that he drank?

LIZA. Drank! My word! Something chronic.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. How dreadful for you!

LIZA. Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But
then he did not keep it up regular. [Cheerfully] On the burst, as
you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when
he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give
him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he'd
drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. There's lots of women has
to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [Now
quite at her ease] You see, it's like this. If a man has a bit of
a conscience, it always takes him when he's sober; and then it
makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and
makes him happy. [To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed
laughter] Here! what are you sniggering at?

FREDDY. The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.

LIZA. If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? [To
Higgins] Have I said anything I oughtn't?

MRS. HIGGINS [interposing] Not at all, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA. Well, that's a mercy, anyhow. [Expansively] What I always
say is--

HIGGINS [rising and looking at his watch] Ahem!

LIZA [looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising] Well: I
must go. [They all rise. Freddy goes to the door]. So pleased to
have met you. Good-bye. [She shakes hands with Mrs. Higgins].

MRS. HIGGINS. Good-bye.

LIZA. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering.

PICKERING. Good-bye, Miss Doolittle. [They shake hands].

LIZA [nodding to the others] Good-bye, all.

FREDDY [opening the door for her] Are you walking across the
Park, Miss Doolittle? If so--

LIZA. Walk! Not bloody likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi.
[She goes out].

Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddy goes out on the balcony to
catch another glimpse of Eliza.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [suffering from shock] Well, I really can't
get used to the new ways.

CLARA [throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan
chair]. Oh, it's all right, mamma, quite right. People will think
we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I daresay I am very old-fashioned; but I do
hope you won't begin using that expression, Clara. I have got
accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, and calling
everything filthy and beastly; though I do think it horrible and
unladylike. But this last is really too much. Don't you think so,
Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING. Don't ask me. I've been away in India for several
years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes don't
know whether I'm at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship's
forecastle.

CLARA. It's all a matter of habit. There's no right or wrong in
it. Nobody means anything by it. And it's so quaint, and gives
such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very
witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [rising] Well, after that, I think it's time
for us to go.

Pickering and Higgins rise.

CLARA [rising] Oh yes: we have three at homes to go to still.
Good-bye, Mrs. Higgins. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering. Good-bye,
Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS [coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying
her to the door] Good-bye. Be sure you try on that small talk at
the three at-homes. Don't be nervous about it. Pitch it in
strong.

CLARA [all smiles] I will. Good-bye. Such nonsense, all this
early Victorian prudery!

HIGGINS [tempting her] Such damned nonsense!

CLARA. Such bloody nonsense!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [convulsively] Clara!

CLARA. Ha! ha! [She goes out radiant, conscious of being
thoroughly up to date, and is heard descending the stairs in a
stream of silvery laughter].

FREDDY [to the heavens at large] Well, I ask you [He gives it up,
and comes to Mrs. Higgins]. Good-bye.

MRS. HIGGINS [shaking hands] Good-bye. Would you like to meet
Miss Doolittle again?

FREDDY [eagerly] Yes, I should, most awfully.

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you know my days.

FREDDY. Yes. Thanks awfully. Good-bye. [He goes out].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Good-bye, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Good-bye. Good-bye.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Pickering] It's no use. I shall never be
able to bring myself to use that word.

PICKERING. Don't. It's not compulsory, you know. You'll get on
quite well without it.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Only, Clara is so down on me if I am not
positively reeking with the latest slang. Good-bye.

PICKERING. Good-bye [They shake hands].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins] You mustn't mind Clara.
[Pickering, catching from her lowered tone that this is not meant
for him to hear, discreetly joins Higgins at the window]. We're
so poor! and she gets so few parties, poor child! She doesn't
quite know. [Mrs. Higgins, seeing that her eyes are moist, takes
her hand sympathetically and goes with her to the door]. But the
boy is nice. Don't you think so?

MRS. HIGGINS. Oh, quite nice. I shall always be delighted to see
him.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Thank you, dear. Good-bye. [She goes out].

HIGGINS [eagerly] Well? Is Eliza presentable [he swoops on his
mother and drags her to the ottoman, where she sits down in
Eliza's place with her son on her left]?

Pickering returns to his chair on her right.

MRS. HIGGINS. You silly boy, of course she's not presentable.
She's a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's; but if you
suppose for a moment that she doesn't give herself away in every
sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her.

PICKERING. But don't you think something might be done? I mean
something to eliminate the sanguinary element from her
conversation.

MRS. HIGGINS. Not as long as she is in Henry's hands.

HIGGINS [aggrieved] Do you mean that my language is improper?

MRS. HIGGINS. No, dearest: it would be quite proper--say on a
canal barge; but it would not be proper for her at a garden
party.

HIGGINS [deeply injured] Well I must say--

PICKERING [interrupting him] Come, Higgins: you must learn to
know yourself. I haven't heard such language as yours since we
used to review the volunteers in Hyde Park twenty years ago.

HIGGINS [sulkily] Oh, well, if you say so, I suppose I don't
always talk like a bishop.

MRS. HIGGINS [quieting Henry with a touch] Colonel Pickering:
will you tell me what is the exact state of things in Wimpole
Street?

PICKERING [cheerfully: as if this completely changed the subject]
Well, I have come to live there with Henry. We work together at
my Indian Dialects; and we think it more convenient--

MRS. HIGGINS. Quite so. I know all about that: it's an excellent
arrangement. But where does this girl live?

HIGGINS. With us, of course. Where would she live?

MRS. HIGGINS. But on what terms? Is she a servant? If not, what
is she?

PICKERING [slowly] I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Well, dash me if I do! I've had to work at the girl
every day for months to get her to her present pitch. Besides,
she's useful. She knows where my things are, and remembers my
appointments and so forth.

MRS. HIGGINS. How does your housekeeper get on with her?

HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce? Oh, she's jolly glad to get so much taken
off her hands; for before Eliza came, she had to have to find
things and remind me of my appointments. But she's got some silly
bee in her bonnet about Eliza. She keeps saying "You don't think,
sir": doesn't she, Pick?

PICKERING. Yes: that's the formula. "You don't think, sir."
That's the end of every conversation about Eliza.

HIGGINS. As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her
confounded vowels and consonants. I'm worn out, thinking about
her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to
mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.

MRS. HIGGINS. You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing
with your live doll.

HIGGINS. Playing! The hardest job I ever tackled: make no mistake
about that, mother. But you have no idea how frightfully
interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a
quite different human being by creating a new speech for her.
It's filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class
and soul from soul.

PICKERING [drawing his chair closer to Mrs. Higgins and bending
over to her eagerly] Yes: it's enormously interesting. I assure
you, Mrs. Higgins, we take Eliza very seriously. Every week--
every day almost--there is some new change. [Closer again] We
keep records of every stage--dozens of gramophone disks and
photographs--

HIGGINS [assailing her at the other ear] Yes, by George: it's the
most absorbing experiment I ever tackled. She regularly fills our
lives up; doesn't she, Pick?