Pygmalion

Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles
blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians running for shelter
into the market and under the portico of St. Paul's Church, where there
are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in
evening dress. They are all peering out gloomily at the rain, except
one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied
with a notebook in which he is writing busily.

The church clock strikes the first quarter.

THE DAUGHTER [in the space between the central pillars, close to the
one on her left] I'm getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be
doing all this time? He's been gone twenty minutes.

THE MOTHER [on her daughter's right] Not so long. But he ought to have
got us a cab by this.

A BYSTANDER [on the lady's right] He won't get no cab not until
half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their
theatre fares.

THE MOTHER. But we must have a cab. We can't stand here until half-past
eleven. It's too bad.

THE BYSTANDER. Well, it ain't my fault, missus.

THE DAUGHTER. If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got one at
the theatre door.

THE MOTHER. What could he have done, poor boy?

THE DAUGHTER. Other people got cabs. Why couldn't he?

Freddy rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street side, and
comes between them closing a dripping umbrella. He is a young man of
twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the ankles.

THE DAUGHTER. Well, haven't you got a cab?

FREDDY. There's not one to be had for love or money.

THE MOTHER. Oh, Freddy, there must be one. You can't have tried.

THE DAUGHTER. It's too tiresome. Do you expect us to go and get one
ourselves?

FREDDY. I tell you they're all engaged. The rain was so sudden: nobody
was prepared; and everybody had to take a cab. I've been to Charing
Cross one way and nearly to Ludgate Circus the other; and they were all
engaged.

THE MOTHER. Did you try Trafalgar Square?

FREDDY. There wasn't one at Trafalgar Square.

THE DAUGHTER. Did you try?

FREDDY. I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect me to
walk to Hammersmith?

THE DAUGHTER. You haven't tried at all.

THE MOTHER. You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and don't
come back until you have found a cab.

FREDDY. I shall simply get soaked for nothing.

THE DAUGHTER. And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in this
draught, with next to nothing on. You selfish pig--

FREDDY. Oh, very well: I'll go, I'll go. [He opens his umbrella and
dashes off Strandwards, but comes into collision with a flower girl,
       who is hurrying in for shelter, knocking her basket out of her hands. A
       blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of
       thunder, orchestrates the incident]

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Nah then, Freddy: look wh' y' gowin, deah.

       FREDDY. Sorry [he rushes off].

       THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in
       the basket] There's menners f' yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into
       the mad. [She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her
       flowers, on the lady's right. She is not at all an attractive person.
       She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a
       little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust
       and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs
       washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears
       a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to
       her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are
       much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to
       be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no
       worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired;
       and she needs the services of a dentist].

       THE MOTHER. How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' de-ooty
       bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn
       than ran awy atbaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them? [Here, with
       apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a
       phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.]

       THE DAUGHTER. Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!

       THE MOTHER. Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies?

       THE DAUGHTER. No. I've nothing smaller than sixpence.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [hopefully] I can give you change for a tanner, kind
       lady.

       THE MOTHER [to Clara] Give it to me. [Clara parts reluctantly]. Now [to
       the girl] This is for your flowers.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Thank you kindly, lady.

       THE DAUGHTER. Make her give you the change. These things are only a
       penny a bunch.

       THE MOTHER. Do hold your tongue, Clara. [To the girl]. You can keep the
       change.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, thank you, lady.

       THE MOTHER. Now tell me how you know that young gentleman's name.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. I didn't.

       THE MOTHER. I heard you call him by it. Don't try to deceive me.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [protesting] Who's trying to deceive you? I called him
       Freddy or Charlie same as you might yourself if you was talking to a
       stranger and wished to be pleasant. [She sits down beside her basket].

       THE DAUGHTER. Sixpence thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have
       spared Freddy that. [She retreats in disgust behind the pillar].

       An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into shelter,
       and closes a dripping umbrella. He is in the same plight as Freddy,
       very wet about the ankles. He is in evening dress, with a light
       overcoat. He takes the place left vacant by the daughter's retirement.

       THE GENTLEMAN. Phew!

       THE MOTHER [to the gentleman] Oh, sir, is there any sign of its
       stopping?

       THE GENTLEMAN. I'm afraid not. It started worse than ever about two
       minutes ago. [He goes to the plinth beside the flower girl; puts up his
       foot on it; and stoops to turn down his trouser ends].

       THE MOTHER. Oh, dear! [She retires sadly and joins her daughter].

       THE FLOWER GIRL [taking advantage of the military gentleman's proximity
       to establish friendly relations with him]. If it's worse it's a sign
       it's nearly over. So cheer up, Captain; and buy a flower off a poor
       girl.

       THE GENTLEMAN. I'm sorry, I haven't any change.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. I can give you change, Captain,

       THE GENTLEMEN. For a sovereign? I've nothing less.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Garn! Oh do buy a flower off me, Captain. I can change
       half-a-crown. Take this for tuppence.

       THE GENTLEMAN. Now don't be troublesome: there's a good girl. [Trying
       his pockets] I really haven't any change--Stop: here's three hapence,
       if that's any use to you [he retreats to the other pillar].

       THE FLOWER GIRL [disappointed, but thinking three halfpence better than
       nothing] Thank you, sir.

       THE BYSTANDER [to the girl] You be careful: give him a flower for it.
       There's a bloke here behind taking down every blessed word you're
       saying. [All turn to the man who is taking notes].

       THE FLOWER GIRL [springing up terrified] I ain't done nothing wrong by
       speaking to the gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers if I keep off
       the kerb. [Hysterically] I'm a respectable girl: so help me, I never
       spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me. [General hubbub,
       mostly sympathetic to the flower girl, but deprecating her excessive
       sensibility. Cries of Don't start hollerin. Who's hurting you? Nobody's
       going to touch you. What's the good of fussing? Steady on. Easy, easy,
       etc., come from the elderly staid spectators, who pat her comfortingly.
       Less patient ones bid her shut her head, or ask her roughly what is
       wrong with her. A remoter group, not knowing what the matter is, crowd
       in and increase the noise with question and answer: What's the row?
       What she do? Where is he? A tec taking her down. What! him? Yes: him
       over there: Took money off the gentleman, etc. The flower girl,
       distraught and mobbed, breaks through them to the gentleman, crying
       mildly] Oh, sir, don't let him charge me. You dunno what it means to
       me. They'll take away my character and drive me on the streets for
       speaking to gentlemen. They--

       THE NOTE TAKER [coming forward on her right, the rest crowding after
       him] There, there, there, there! Who's hurting you, you silly girl?
       What do you take me for?

       THE BYSTANDER. It's all right: he's a gentleman: look at his boots.
       [Explaining to the note taker] She thought you was a copper's nark, sir.

       THE NOTE TAKER [with quick interest] What's a copper's nark?

       THE BYSTANDER [inept at definition] It's a--well, it's a copper's nark,
       as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [still hysterical] I take my Bible oath I never said a
       word--

       THE NOTE TAKER [overbearing but good-humored] Oh, shut up, shut up. Do
       I look like a policeman?

       THE FLOWER GIRL [far from reassured] Then what did you take down my
       words for? How do I know whether you took me down right? You just show
       me what you've wrote about me. [The note taker opens his book and holds
       it steadily under her nose, though the pressure of the mob trying to
       read it over his shoulders would upset a weaker man]. What's that? That
       ain't proper writing. I can't read that.

       THE NOTE TAKER. I can. [Reads, reproducing her pronunciation exactly]
       "Cheer ap, Keptin; n' haw ya flahr orf a pore gel."

       THE FLOWER GIRL [much  distressed] It's because I called him Captain. I
       meant no harm. [To the gentleman] Oh, sir, don't let him lay a charge
       agen me for a word like that. You--

       THE GENTLEMAN. Charge! I make no charge. [To the note taker] Really,
       sir, if you are a detective, you need not begin protecting me against
       molestation by young women until I ask you. Anybody could see that the
       girl meant no harm.

       THE BYSTANDERS GENERALLY [demonstrating against police espionage]
       Course they could. What business is it of yours? You mind your own
       affairs. He wants promotion, he does. Taking down people's words! Girl
       never said a word to him. What harm if she did? Nice thing a girl can't
       shelter from the rain without being insulted, etc., etc., etc. [She is
       conducted by the more sympathetic demonstrators back to her plinth,
       where she resumes her seat and struggles with her emotion].

       THE BYSTANDER. He ain't a tec. He's a blooming busybody: that's what he
       is. I tell you, look at his boots.

       THE NOTE TAKER [turning on him genially] And how are all your people
       down at Selsey?

       THE BYSTANDER [suspiciously] Who told you my people come from Selsey?

       THE NOTE TAKER. Never you mind. They did. [To the girl] How do you come
       to be up so far east? You were born in Lisson Grove.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [appalled] Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson
       Grove? It wasn't fit for a pig to live in; and I had to pay
       four-and-six a week. [In tears] Oh, boo--hoo--oo--

       THE NOTE TAKER. Live where you like; but stop that noise.

       THE GENTLEMAN [to the girl] Come, come! he can't touch you: you have a
       right to live where you please.

       A SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [thrusting himself between the note taker and the
       gentleman] Park Lane, for instance. I'd like to go into the Housing
       Question with you, I would.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [subsiding into a brooding melancholy over her basket,
       and talking very low-spiritedly to herself] I'm a good girl, I am.

       THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [not attending to her] Do you know where _I_
       come from?

       THE NOTE TAKER [promptly] Hoxton.

       Titterings. Popular interest in the note taker's performance increases.

       THE SARCASTIC ONE [amazed] Well, who said I didn't? Bly me! You know
       everything, you do.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [still nursing her sense of injury] Ain't no call to
       meddle with me, he ain't.

       THE BYSTANDER [to her] Of course he ain't. Don't you stand it from him.
       [To the note taker] See here: what call have you to know about people
       what never offered to meddle with you? Where's your warrant?

       SEVERAL BYSTANDERS [encouraged by this seeming point of law] Yes:
       where's your warrant?

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him say what he likes. I don't want to have no
       truck with him.

       THE BYSTANDER. You take us for dirt under your feet, don't you? Catch
       you taking liberties with a gentleman!

       THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. Yes: tell HIM where he come from if you want
       to go fortune-telling.

       THE NOTE TAKER. Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India.

       THE GENTLEMAN. Quite right. [Great laughter. Reaction in the note
       taker's favor. Exclamations of He knows all about it. Told him proper.
       Hear him tell the toff where he come from? etc.]. May I ask, sir, do
       you do this for your living at a music hall?

       THE NOTE TAKER. I've thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.

       The rain has stopped; and the persons on the outside of the crowd begin
       to drop off.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [resenting the reaction] He's no gentleman, he ain't,
       to interfere with a poor girl.

       THE DAUGHTER [out of patience, pushing her way rudely to the front and
       displacing the gentleman, who politely retires to the other side of the
       pillar] What on earth is Freddy doing? I shall get pneumonia if I stay
       in this draught any longer.

       THE NOTE TAKER [to himself, hastily making a note of her pronunciation
       of "monia"] Earlscourt.

       THE DAUGHTER [violently] Will you please keep your impertinent remarks
       to yourself?

       THE NOTE TAKER. Did I say that out loud? I didn't mean to. I beg your
       pardon. Your mother's Epsom, unmistakeably.

       THE MOTHER [advancing between her daughter and the note taker] How very
       curious! I was brought up in Largelady Park, near Epsom.

       THE NOTE TAKER [uproariously amused] Ha! ha! What a devil of a name!
       Excuse me. [To the daughter] You want a cab, do you?

       THE DAUGHTER. Don't dare speak to me.

       THE MOTHER. Oh, please, please Clara. [Her daughter repudiates her with
       an angry shrug and retires haughtily.] We should be so grateful to you,
       sir, if you found us a cab. [The note taker produces a whistle]. Oh,
       thank you. [She joins her daughter]. The note taker blows a piercing
       blast.

       THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. There! I knowed he was a plain-clothes copper.

       THE BYSTANDER. That ain't a police whistle: that's a sporting whistle.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [still preoccupied with her wounded feelings] He's no
       right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any
       lady's.

       THE NOTE TAKER. I don't know whether you've noticed it; but the rain
       stopped about two minutes ago.

       THE BYSTANDER. So it has. Why didn't you say so before? and us losing
       our time listening to your silliness. [He walks off towards the Strand].

       THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. I can tell where you come from. You come from
       Anwell. Go back there.

       THE NOTE TAKER [helpfully] _H_anwell.

       THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [affecting great distinction of speech] Thenk
       you, teacher. Haw haw! So long [he touches his hat with mock respect
       and strolls off].

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Frightening people like that! How would he like it
       himself.

       THE MOTHER. It's quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor bus.
       Come. [She gathers her skirts above her ankles and hurries off towards
       the Strand].

       THE DAUGHTER. But the cab--[her mother is out of hearing]. Oh, how
       tiresome! [She follows angrily].

       All the rest have gone except the note taker, the gentleman, and the
       flower girl, who sits arranging her basket, and still pitying herself
       in murmurs.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Poor girl! Hard enough for her to live without being
       worrited and chivied.

       THE GENTLEMAN [returning to his former place on the note taker's left]
       How do you do it, if I may ask?

       THE NOTE TAKER. Simply phonetics. The science of speech. That's my
       profession; also my hobby. Happy is the man who can make a living by
       his hobby! You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I
       can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in
       London. Sometimes within two streets.

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward!

       THE GENTLEMAN. But is there a living in that?

       THE NOTE TAKER. Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts.
       Men begin in Kentish Town with 80 pounds a year, and end in Park Lane
       with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give
       themselves away every time they open their mouths. Now I can teach
       them--

       THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him mind his own business and leave a poor girl--

       THE NOTE TAKER [explosively] Woman: cease this detestable boohooing
       instantly; or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [with feeble defiance] I've a right to be here if I
       like, same as you.

       THE NOTE TAKER. A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting
       sounds has no right to be anywhere--no right to live. Remember that you
       are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech:
       that your native language is the language of Shakespear and Milton and
       The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled
       wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head]
       Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!

       THE NOTE TAKER [whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound! [He
       writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels
       exactly] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo!

       THE FLOWER GIRL [tickled by the performance, and laughing in spite of
       herself] Garn!

       THE NOTE TAKER. You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the
       English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well,
       sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an
       ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid
       or shop assistant, which requires better English. That's the sort of
       thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do
       genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on
       Miltonic lines.

       THE GENTLEMAN. I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and--

       THE NOTE TAKER [eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the
       author of Spoken Sanscrit?

       THE GENTLEMAN. I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?

       THE NOTE TAKER. Henry Higgins, author of Higgins's Universal Alphabet.

       PICKERING [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you.

       HIGGINS. I was going to India to meet you.

       PICKERING. Where do you live?

       HIGGINS. 27A Wimpole Street. Come and see me tomorrow.

       PICKERING. I'm at the Carlton. Come with me now and let's have a jaw
       over some supper.

       HIGGINS. Right you are.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [to Pickering, as he passes her] Buy a flower, kind
       gentleman. I'm short for my lodging.

       PICKERING. I really haven't any change. I'm sorry [he goes away].

       HIGGINS [shocked at girl's mendacity] Liar. You said you could change
       half-a-crown.

       THE FLOWER GIRL [rising in desperation] You ought to be stuffed with
       nails, you ought. [Flinging the basket at his feet] Take the whole
       blooming basket for sixpence.

       The church clock strikes the second quarter.

       HIGGINS [hearing in it the voice of God, rebuking him for his Pharisaic
       want of charity to the poor girl] A reminder. [He raises his hat
       solemnly; then throws a handful of money into the basket and follows
       Pickering].

       THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up a half-crown] Ah--ow--ooh! [Picking up a
       couple of florins] Aaah--ow--ooh! [Picking up several coins]
       Aaaaaah--ow--ooh! [Picking up a half-sovereign]
       Aasaaaaaaaaah--ow--ooh!!!

       FREDDY [springing out of a taxicab] Got one at last. Hallo! [To the
       girl] Where are the two ladies that were here?

       THE FLOWER GIRL. They walked to the bus when the rain stopped.

       FREDDY. And left me with a cab on my hands. Damnation!

       THE FLOWER GIRL [with grandeur] Never you mind, young man. I'm going
       home in a taxi. [She sails off to the cab. The driver puts his hand
       behind him and holds the door firmly shut against her. Quite
       understanding his mistrust, she shows him her handful of money].
       Eightpence ain't no object to me, Charlie. [He grins and opens the
       door]. Angel Court, Drury Lane, round the corner of Micklejohn's oil
       shop. Let's see how fast you can make her hop it. [She gets in and
       pulls the door to with a slam as the taxicab starts].

       FREDDY. Well, I'm dashed!

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 bird's 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 succeeded 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?

    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.

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?

    PICKERING. We're always talking Eliza.

    HIGGINS. Teaching Eliza.

    PICKERING. Dressing Eliza.

    MRS. HIGGINS. What!

    HIGGINS. Inventing new Elizas.

    Higgins and Pickering, speaking together:

    HIGGINS.    You know, she has the most extraordinary quickness of ear:
    PICKERING.  I assure you, my dear Mrs. Higgins, that girl
    HIGGINS.    just like a parrot. I've tried her with every
    PICKERING.  is a genius. She can play the piano quite beautifully
    HIGGINS.    possible sort of sound that a human being can make--
    PICKERING.  We have taken her to classical concerts and to music
    HIGGINS.    Continental dialects, African dialects, Hottentot
    PICKERING.  halls; and it's all the same to her: she plays everything
    HIGGINS.    clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and
    PICKERING.  she hears right off when she comes home, whether it's
    HIGGINS.    she picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she had
    PICKERING.  Beethoven and Brahms or Lehar and Lionel Morickton;
    HIGGINS.    been at it all her life.
    PICKERING.  though six months ago, she'd never as much as touched
    a piano.

    MRS. HIGGINS [putting her fingers in her ears, as they are by this time
    shouting one another down with an intolerable noise] Sh--sh--sh--sh!
    [They stop].

    PICKERING. I beg your pardon. [He draws his chair back apologetically].

    HIGGINS. Sorry. When Pickering starts shouting nobody can get a word in
    edgeways.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Be quiet, Henry. Colonel Pickering: don't you realize
    that when Eliza walked into Wimpole Street, something walked in with
    her?

    PICKERING. Her father did. But Henry soon got rid of him.

    MRS. HIGGINS. It would have been more to the point if her mother had.
    But as her mother didn't something else did.

    PICKERING. But what?

    MRS. HIGGINS [unconsciously dating herself by the word] A problem.

    PICKERING. Oh, I see. The problem of how to pass her off as a lady.

    HIGGINS. I'll solve that problem. I've half solved it already.

    MRS. HIGGINS. No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem
    of what is to be done with her afterwards.

    HIGGINS. I don't see anything in that. She can go her own way, with all
    the advantages I have given her.

    MRS. HIGGINS. The advantages of that poor woman who was here just now!
    The manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own
    living without giving her a fine lady's income! Is that what you mean?

    PICKERING [indulgently, being rather bored] Oh, that will be all right,
    Mrs. Higgins. [He rises to go].

    HIGGINS [rising also] We'll find her some light employment.

    PICKERING. She's happy enough. Don't you worry about her. Good-bye. [He
    shakes hands as if he were consoling a frightened child, and makes for
    the door].

    HIGGINS. Anyhow, there's no good bothering now. The thing's done.
    Good-bye, mother. [He kisses her, and follows Pickering].

    PICKERING [turning for a final consolation] There are plenty of
    openings. We'll do what's right. Good-bye.

    HIGGINS [to Pickering as they go out together] Let's take her to the
    Shakespear exhibition at Earls Court.

    PICKERING. Yes: let's. Her remarks will be delicious.

    HIGGINS. She'll mimic all the people for us when we get home.

    PICKERING. Ripping. [Both are heard laughing as they go downstairs].

    MRS. HIGGINS [rises with an impatient bounce, and returns to her work
    at the writing-table. She sweeps a litter of disarranged papers out of
    her way; snatches a sheet of paper from her stationery case; and tries
    resolutely to write. At the third line she gives it up; flings down her
    pen; grips the table angrily and exclaims] Oh, men! men!! men!!!

The Wimpole Street laboratory. Midnight. Nobody in the room. The clock
on the mantelpiece strikes twelve. The fire is not alight: it is a
summer night.

Presently Higgins and Pickering are heard on the stairs.

HIGGINS [calling down to Pickering] I say, Pick: lock up, will you. I
shan't be going out again.

PICKERING. Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We don't want anything
more, do we?

HIGGINS. Lord, no!

Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera cloak,
      brilliant evening dress, and diamonds, with fan, flowers, and all
      accessories. She comes to the hearth, and switches on the electric
      lights there. She is tired: her pallor contrasts strongly with her dark
      eyes and hair; and her expression is almost tragic. She takes off her
      cloak; puts her fan and flowers on the piano; and sits down on the
      bench, brooding and silent. Higgins, in evening dress, with overcoat
      and hat, comes in, carrying a smoking jacket which he has picked up
      downstairs. He takes off the hat and overcoat; throws them carelessly
      on the newspaper stand; disposes of his coat in the same way; puts on
      the smoking jacket; and throws himself wearily into the easy-chair at
      the hearth. Pickering, similarly attired, comes in. He also takes off
      his hat and overcoat, and is about to throw them on Higgins's when he
      hesitates.

      PICKERING. I say: Mrs. Pearce will row if we leave these things lying
      about in the drawing-room.

      HIGGINS. Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She'll find
      them there in the morning and put them away all right. She'll think we
      were drunk.

      PICKERING. We are, slightly. Are there any letters?

      HIGGINS. I didn't look. [Pickering takes the overcoats and hats and
      goes down stairs. Higgins begins half singing half yawning an air from
      La Fanciulla del Golden West. Suddenly he stops and exclaims] I wonder
      where the devil my slippers are!

      Eliza looks at him darkly; then leaves the room.

      Higgins yawns again, and resumes his song. Pickering returns, with the
      contents of the letter-box in his hand.

      PICKERING. Only circulars, and this coroneted billet-doux for you. [He
      throws the circulars into the fender, and posts himself on the
      hearthrug, with his back to the grate].

      HIGGINS [glancing at the billet-doux] Money-lender. [He throws the
      letter after the circulars].

      Eliza returns with a pair of large down-at-heel slippers. She places
      them on the carpet before Higgins, and sits as before without a word.

      HIGGINS [yawning again] Oh Lord! What an evening! What a crew! What a
      silly tomfoollery! [He raises his shoe to unlace it, and catches sight
      of the slippers. He stops unlacing and looks at them as if they had
      appeared there of their own accord]. Oh! they're there, are they?

      PICKERING [stretching himself] Well, I feel a bit tired. It's been a
      long day. The garden party, a dinner party, and the opera! Rather too
      much of a good thing. But you've won your bet, Higgins. Eliza did the
      trick, and something to spare, eh?

      HIGGINS [fervently] Thank God it's over!

      Eliza flinches violently; but they take no notice of her; and she
      recovers herself and sits stonily as before.

      PICKERING. Were you nervous at the garden party? I was. Eliza didn't
      seem a bit nervous.

      HIGGINS. Oh, she wasn't nervous. I knew she'd be all right. No, it's
      the strain of putting the job through all these months that has told on
      me. It was interesting enough at first, while we were at the phonetics;
      but after that I got deadly sick of it. If I hadn't backed myself to do
      it I should have chucked the whole thing up two months ago. It was a
      silly notion: the whole thing has been a bore.

      PICKERING. Oh come! the garden party was frightfully exciting. My heart
      began beating like anything.

      HIGGINS. Yes, for the first three minutes. But when I saw we were going
      to win hands down, I felt like a bear in a cage, hanging about doing
      nothing. The dinner was worse: sitting gorging there for over an hour,
      with nobody but a damned fool of a fashionable woman to talk to! I tell
      you, Pickering, never again for me. No more artificial duchesses. The
      whole thing has been simple purgatory.

      PICKERING. You've never been broken in properly to the social routine.
      [Strolling over to the piano] I rather enjoy dipping into it
      occasionally myself: it makes me feel young again. Anyhow, it was a
      great success: an immense success. I was quite frightened once or twice
      because Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the real people
      can't do it at all: they're such fools that they think style comes by
      nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. There's
      always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.

      HIGGINS. Yes: that's what drives me mad: the silly people don't know
      their own silly business. [Rising] However, it's over and done with;
      and now I can go to bed at last without dreading tomorrow.

      Eliza's beauty becomes murderous.

      PICKERING. I think I shall turn in too. Still, it's been a great
      occasion: a triumph for you. Good-night. [He goes].

      HIGGINS [following him] Good-night. [Over his shoulder, at the door]
      Put out the lights, Eliza; and tell Mrs. Pearce not to make coffee for
      me in the morning: I'll take tea. [He goes out].

      Eliza tries to control herself and feel indifferent as she rises and
      walks across to the hearth to switch off the lights. By the time she
      gets there she is on the point of screaming. She sits down in Higgins's
      chair and holds on hard to the arms. Finally she gives way and flings
      herself furiously on the floor raging.

      HIGGINS [in despairing wrath outside] What the devil have I done with
      my slippers? [He appears at the door].

      LIZA [snatching up the slippers, and hurling them at him one after the
      other with all her force] There are your slippers. And there. Take your
      slippers; and may you never have a day's luck with them!

      HIGGINS [astounded] What on earth--! [He comes to her]. What's the
      matter? Get up. [He pulls her up]. Anything wrong?

      LIZA [breathless] Nothing wrong--with YOU. I've won your bet for you,
      haven't I? That's enough for you. _I_ don't matter, I suppose.

      HIGGINS. YOU won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! _I_ won it. What did
      you throw those slippers at me for?

      LIZA. Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you, you
      selfish brute. Why didn't you leave me where you picked me out of--in
      the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me
      back again there, do you? [She crisps her fingers, frantically].

      HIGGINS [looking at her in cool wonder] The creature IS nervous, after
      all.

      LIZA [gives a suffocated scream of fury, and instinctively darts her
      nails at his face]!!

      HIGGINS [catching her wrists] Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How
      dare you show your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet. [He throws her
      roughly into the easy-chair].

      LIZA [crushed by superior strength and weight] What's to become of me?
      What's to become of me?

      HIGGINS. How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What does it
      matter what becomes of you?

      LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care. You wouldn't care if I was
      dead. I'm nothing to you--not so much as them slippers.

      HIGGINS [thundering] THOSE slippers.

      LIZA [with bitter submission] Those slippers. I didn't think it made
      any difference now.

      A pause. Eliza hopeless and crushed. Higgins a little uneasy.

      HIGGINS [in his loftiest manner] Why have you begun going on like this?
      May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here?

      LIZA. No.

      HIGGINS. Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering? Mrs.
      Pearce? Any of the servants?

      LIZA. No.

      HIGGINS. I presume you don't pretend that I have treated you badly.

      LIZA. No.

      HIGGINS. I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps you're
      tired after the strain of the day. Will you have a glass of champagne?
      [He moves towards the door].

      LIZA. No. [Recollecting her manners] Thank you.

      HIGGINS [good-humored again] This has been coming on you for some days.
      I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the garden party.
      But that's all over now. [He pats her kindly on the shoulder. She
      writhes]. There's nothing more to worry about.

      LIZA. No. Nothing more for you to worry about. [She suddenly rises and
      gets away from him by going to the piano bench, where she sits and
      hides her face]. Oh God! I wish I was dead.

      HIGGINS [staring after her in sincere surprise] Why? in heaven's name,
      why? [Reasonably, going to her] Listen to me, Eliza. All this
      irritation is purely subjective.

      LIZA. I don't understand. I'm too ignorant.

      HIGGINS. It's only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else. Nobody's
      hurting you. Nothing's wrong. You go to bed like a good girl and sleep
      it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers: that will make you
      comfortable.

      LIZA. I heard YOUR prayers. "Thank God it's all over!"

      HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, don't you thank God it's all over? Now you
      are free and can do what you like.

      LIZA [pulling herself together in desperation] What am I fit for? What
      have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What's to
      become of me?

      HIGGINS [enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, that's what's
      worrying you, is it? [He thrusts his hands into his pockets, and walks
      about in his usual manner, rattling the contents of his pockets, as if
      condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness]. I shouldn't
      bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you won't have much
      difficulty in settling yourself, somewhere or other, though I hadn't
      quite realized that you were going away. [She looks quickly at him: he
      does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the piano and
      decides that he will eat an apple]. You might marry, you know. [He
      bites a large piece out of the apple, and munches it noisily]. You see,
      Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel.
      Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and you're not
      bad-looking; it's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes--not now,
      of course, because you're crying and looking as ugly as the very devil;
but when you're all right and quite yourself, you're what I should call
attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you
understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up
and look at yourself in the glass; and you won't feel so cheap.

Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not stir.

The look is quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy
expression of happiness, as it is quite a good one.

HIGGINS [a genial afterthought occurring to him] I daresay my mother
could find some chap or other who would do very well--

LIZA. We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.

HIGGINS [waking up] What do you mean?

LIZA. I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of
me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish you'd left me where you
found me.

HIGGINS [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate]
Tosh, Eliza. Don't you insult human relations by dragging all this cant
about buying and selling into it. You needn't marry the fellow if you
don't like him.

LIZA. What else am I to do?

HIGGINS. Oh, lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist's
shop? Pickering could set you up in one: he's lots of money.
[Chuckling] He'll have to pay for all those togs you have been wearing
today; and that, with the hire of the jewellery, will make a big hole
in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago you would have thought it
the millennium to have a flower shop of your own. Come! you'll be all
right. I must clear off to bed: I'm devilish sleepy. By the way, I came
down for something: I forget what it was.

LIZA. Your slippers.

HIGGINS. Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me. [He picks them up,
    and is going out when she rises and speaks to him].

    LIZA. Before you go, sir--

    HIGGINS [dropping the slippers in his surprise at her calling him sir]
    Eh?

    LIZA. Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering?

    HIGGINS [coming back into the room as if her question were the very
    climax of unreason] What the devil use would they be to Pickering?

    LIZA. He might want them for the next girl you pick up to experiment on.

    HIGGINS [shocked and hurt] Is THAT the way you feel towards us?

    LIZA. I don't want to hear anything more about that. All I want to know
    is whether anything belongs to me. My own clothes were burnt.

    HIGGINS. But what does it matter? Why need you start bothering about
    that in the middle of the night?

    LIZA. I want to know what I may take away with me. I don't want to be
    accused of stealing.

    HIGGINS [now deeply wounded] Stealing! You shouldn't have said that,
    Eliza. That shows a want of feeling.

    LIZA. I'm sorry. I'm only a common ignorant girl; and in my station I
    have to be careful. There can't be any feelings between the like of you
    and the like of me. Please will you tell me what belongs to me and what
    doesn't?

    HIGGINS [very sulky] You may take the whole damned houseful if you
    like. Except the jewels. They're hired. Will that satisfy you? [He
    turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon].

    LIZA [drinking in his emotion like nectar, and nagging him to provoke a
    further supply] Stop, please. [She takes off her jewels]. Will you take
    these to your room and keep them safe? I don't want to run the risk of
    their being missing.

    HIGGINS [furious] Hand them over. [She puts them into his hands]. If
    these belonged to me instead of to the jeweler, I'd ram them down your
    ungrateful throat. [He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets,
    unconsciously decorating himself with the protruding ends of the
    chains].

    LIZA [taking a ring off] This ring isn't the jeweler's: it's the one
    you bought me in Brighton. I don't want it now. [Higgins dashes the
    ring violently into the fireplace, and turns on her so threateningly
    that she crouches over the piano with her hands over her face, and
    exclaims] Don't you hit me.

    HIGGINS. Hit you! You infamous creature, how dare you accuse me of such
    a thing? It is you who have hit me. You have wounded me to the heart.

    LIZA [thrilling with hidden joy] I'm glad. I've got a little of my own
    back, anyhow.

    HIGGINS [with dignity, in his finest professional style] You have
    caused me to lose my temper: a thing that has hardly ever happened to
    me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to bed.

    LIZA [pertly] You'd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the
    coffee; for she won't be told by me.

    HIGGINS [formally] Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and damn you;
    and damn my own folly in having lavished MY hard-earned knowledge and
    the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a heartless guttersnipe. [He
    goes out with impressive decorum, and spoils it by slamming the door
    savagely].

    Eliza smiles for the first time; expresses her feelings by a wild
    pantomime in which an imitation of Higgins's exit is confused with her
    own triumph; and finally goes down on her knees on the hearthrug to
    look for the ring.

Mrs. Higgins's drawing-room. She is at her writing-table as before. The
parlor-maid comes in.

THE PARLOR-MAID [at the door]  Mr. Henry, mam, is downstairs with
Colonel Pickering.

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, show them up.

THE PARLOR-MAID. They're using the telephone, mam. Telephoning to the
police, I think.

MRS. HIGGINS. What!

THE PARLOR-MAID [coming further in and lowering her voice] Mr. Henry's
in a state, mam. I thought I'd better tell you.

MRS. HIGGINS. If you had told me that Mr. Henry was not in a state it
would have been more surprising. Tell them to come up when they've
finished with the police. I suppose he's lost something.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, maam [going].

MRS. HIGGINS. Go upstairs and tell Miss Doolittle that Mr. Henry and
the Colonel are here. Ask her not to come down till I send for her.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, mam.

Higgins bursts in. He is, as the parlor-maid has said, in a state.

HIGGINS. Look here, mother: here's a confounded thing!

MRS. HIGGINS. Yes, dear. Good-morning. [He checks his impatience and
kisses her, whilst the parlor-maid goes out]. What is it?

HIGGINS. Eliza's bolted.

MRS. HIGGINS [calmly continuing her writing] You must have frightened
her.

HIGGINS. Frightened her! nonsense! She was left last night, as usual,
    to turn out the lights and all that; and instead of going to bed she
    changed her clothes and went right off: her bed wasn't slept in. She
    came in a cab for her things before seven this morning; and that fool
    Mrs. Pearce let her have them without telling me a word about it. What
    am I to do?

    MRS. HIGGINS. Do without, I'm afraid, Henry. The girl has a perfect
    right to leave if she chooses.

    HIGGINS [wandering distractedly across the room] But I can't find
    anything. I don't know what appointments I've got. I'm-- [Pickering
    comes in. Mrs. Higgins puts down her pen and turns away from the
    writing-table].

    PICKERING [shaking hands] Good-morning, Mrs. Higgins. Has Henry told
    you? [He sits down on the ottoman].

    HIGGINS. What does that ass of an inspector say? Have you offered a
    reward?

    MRS. HIGGINS [rising in indignant amazement] You don't mean to say you
    have set the police after Eliza?

    HIGGINS. Of course. What are the police for? What else could we do? [He
    sits in the Elizabethan chair].

    PICKERING. The inspector made a lot of difficulties. I really think he
    suspected us of some improper purpose.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Well, of course he did. What right have you to go to the
    police and give the girl's name as if she were a thief, or a lost
    umbrella, or something? Really! [She sits down again, deeply vexed].

    HIGGINS. But we want to find her.

    PICKERING. We can't let her go like this, you know, Mrs. Higgins. What
    were we to do?

    MRS. HIGGINS. You have no more sense, either of you, than two children.
    Why--

    The parlor-maid comes in and breaks off the conversation.

    THE PARLOR-MAID. Mr. Henry: a gentleman wants to see you very
    particular. He's been sent on from Wimpole Street.

    HIGGINS. Oh, bother! I can't see anyone now. Who is it?

    THE PARLOR-MAID. A Mr. Doolittle, Sir.

    PICKERING. Doolittle! Do you mean the dustman?

    THE PARLOR-MAID. Dustman! Oh no, sir: a gentleman.

    HIGGINS [springing up excitedly] By George, Pick, it's some relative of
    hers that she's gone to. Somebody we know nothing about. [To the
    parlor-maid] Send him up, quick.

    THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, Sir. [She goes].

    HIGGINS [eagerly, going to his mother] Genteel relatives! now we shall
    hear something. [He sits down in the Chippendale chair].

    MRS. HIGGINS. Do you know any of her people?

    PICKERING. Only her father: the fellow we told you about.

    THE PARLOR-MAID [announcing] Mr. Doolittle. [She withdraws].

    Doolittle enters. He is brilliantly dressed in a new fashionable
    frock-coat, with white waistcoat and grey trousers. A flower in his
    buttonhole, a dazzling silk hat, and patent leather shoes complete the
    effect. He is too concerned with the business he has come on to notice
    Mrs. Higgins. He walks straight to Higgins, and accosts him with
    vehement reproach.

    DOOLITTLE [indicating his own person] See here! Do you see this? You
    done this.

    HIGGINS. Done what, man?

    DOOLITTLE. This, I tell you. Look at it. Look at this hat. Look at this
    coat.

    PICKERING. Has Eliza been buying you clothes?

    DOOLITTLE. Eliza! not she. Not half. Why would she buy me clothes?

    MRS. HIGGINS. Good-morning, Mr. Doolittle. Won't you sit down?

    DOOLITTLE [taken aback as he becomes conscious that he has forgotten
    his hostess] Asking your pardon, ma'am. [He approaches her and shakes
    her proffered hand]. Thank you. [He sits down on the ottoman, on
    Pickering's right]. I am that full of what has happened to me that I
    can't think of anything else.

    HIGGINS. What the dickens has happened to you?

    DOOLITTLE. I shouldn't mind if it had only happened to me: anything
    might happen to anybody and nobody to blame but Providence, as you
    might say. But this is something that you done to me: yes, you, Henry
    Higgins.

    HIGGINS. Have you found Eliza? That's the point.

    DOOLITTLE. Have you lost her?

    HIGGINS. Yes.

    DOOLITTLE. You have all the luck, you have. I ain't found her; but
    she'll find me quick enough now after what you done to me.

    MRS. HIGGINS. But what has my son done to you, Mr. Doolittle?

    DOOLITTLE. Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up
    and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.

    HIGGINS [rising intolerantly and standing over Doolittle] You're
    raving. You're drunk. You're mad. I gave you five pounds. After that I
    had two conversations with you, at half-a-crown an hour. I've never
    seen you since.

    DOOLITTLE. Oh! Drunk! am I? Mad! am I? Tell me this. Did you or did you
    not write a letter to an old blighter in America that was giving five
    millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the world, and that
    wanted you to invent a universal language for him?

    HIGGINS. What! Ezra D. Wannafeller! He's dead. [He sits down again
    carelessly].

    DOOLITTLE. Yes: he's dead; and I'm done for. Now did you or did you not
    write a letter to him to say that the most original moralist at present
    in England, to the best of your knowledge, was Alfred Doolittle, a
    common dustman.

    HIGGINS. Oh, after your last visit I remember making some silly joke of
    the kind.

    DOOLITTLE. Ah! you may well call it a silly joke. It put the lid on me
    right enough. Just give him the chance he wanted to show that Americans
    is not like us: that they recognize and respect merit in every class of
    life, however humble. Them words is in his blooming will, in which,
    Henry Higgins, thanks to your silly joking, he leaves me a share in his
    Pre-digested Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year on condition that
    I lecture for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as
    they ask me up to six times a year.

    HIGGINS. The devil he does! Whew! [Brightening suddenly] What a lark!

    PICKERING. A safe thing for you, Doolittle. They won't ask you twice.

    DOOLITTLE. It ain't the lecturing I mind. I'll lecture them blue in the
    face, I will, and not turn a hair. It's making a gentleman of me that I
    object to. Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was
    free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same
    as I touched you, Henry Higgins. Now I am worrited; tied neck and
    heels; and everybody touches me for money. It's a fine thing for you,
    says my solicitor. Is it? says I. You mean it's a good thing for you, I
    says. When I was a poor man and had a solicitor once when they found a
    pram in the dust cart, he got me off, and got shut of me and got me
    shut of him as quick as he could. Same with the doctors: used to shove
    me out of the hospital before I could hardly stand on my legs, and
    nothing to pay. Now they finds out that I'm not a healthy man and can't
    live unless they looks after me twice a day. In the house I'm not let
    do a hand's turn for myself: somebody else must do it and touch me for
    it. A year ago I hadn't a relative in the world except two or three
    that wouldn't speak to me. Now I've fifty, and not a decent week's
    wages among the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for
    myself: that's middle class morality. You talk of losing Eliza. Don't
    you be anxious: I bet she's on my doorstep by this: she that could
    support herself easy by selling flowers if I wasn't respectable. And
    the next one to touch me will be you, Henry Higgins. I'll have to learn
    to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper
    English. That's where you'll come in; and I daresay that's what you
    done it for.

    MRS. HIGGINS. But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all this
    if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force you to accept this
    bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn't that so, Colonel Pickering?

    PICKERING. I believe so.

    DOOLITTLE [softening his manner in deference to her sex] That's the
    tragedy of it, ma'am. It's easy to say chuck it; but I haven't the
    nerve. Which one of us has? We're all intimidated. Intimidated, ma'am:
    that's what we are. What is there for me if I chuck it but the
    workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair already to keep my job
    as a dustman. If I was one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit,
    I could chuck it; but then why should I, acause the deserving poor
    might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They
    don't know what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor,
    have nothing between me and the pauper's uniform but this here blasted
    three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class. (Excuse the
            expression, ma'am: you'd use it yourself if you had my provocation).
    They've got you every way you turn: it's a choice between the Skilly of
    the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class; and I haven't the
    nerve for the workhouse. Intimidated: that's what I am. Broke. Bought
    up. Happier men than me will call for my dust, and touch me for their
    tip; and I'll look on helpless, and envy them. And that's what your son
    has brought me to. [He is overcome by emotion].

    MRS. HIGGINS. Well, I'm very glad you're not going to do anything
    foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the problem of Eliza's future.
    You can provide for her now.

    DOOLITTLE [with melancholy resignation] Yes, ma'am; I'm expected to
    provide for everyone now, out of three thousand a year.

    HIGGINS [jumping up] Nonsense! he can't provide for her. He shan't
    provide for her. She doesn't belong to him. I paid him five pounds for
    her. Doolittle: either you're an honest man or a rogue.

    DOOLITTLE [tolerantly] A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a
    little of both.

    HIGGINS. Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no right
    to take her as well.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: don't be absurd. If you really want to know where
    Eliza is, she is upstairs.

    HIGGINS [amazed] Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her
    downstairs. [He makes resolutely for the door].

    MRS. HIGGINS [rising and following him] Be quiet, Henry. Sit down.

    HIGGINS. I--

    MRS. HIGGINS. Sit down, dear; and listen to me.

    HIGGINS. Oh very well, very well, very well. [He throws himself
    ungraciously on the ottoman, with his face towards the windows]. But I
    think you might have told me this half an hour ago.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Eliza came to me this morning. She passed the night
    partly walking about in a rage, partly trying to throw herself into the
    river and being afraid to, and partly in the Carlton Hotel. She told me
    of the brutal way you two treated her.

    HIGGINS [bounding up again] What!

    PICKERING [rising also] My dear Mrs. Higgins, she's been telling you
    stories. We didn't treat her brutally. We hardly said a word to her;
    and we parted on particularly good terms. [Turning on Higgins].
    Higgins: did you bully her after I went to bed?

    HIGGINS. Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my face.
    She behaved in the most outrageous way. I never gave her the slightest
    provocation. The slippers came bang into my face the moment I entered
    the room--before I had uttered a word. And used perfectly awful
    language.

    PICKERING [astonished] But why? What did we do to her?

    MRS. HIGGINS. I think I know pretty well what you did. The girl is
    naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isn't she, Mr. Doolittle?

    DOOLITTLE. Very tender-hearted, ma'am. Takes after me.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Just so. She had become attached to you both. She worked
    very hard for you, Henry! I don't think you quite realize what anything
    in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems
    that when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing
    for you without making a single mistake, you two sat there and never
    said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it
    was all over and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then
    you were surprised because she threw your slippers at you! _I_ should
    have thrown the fire-irons at you.

    HIGGINS. We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to go to
    bed. Did we, Pick?

    PICKERING [shrugging his shoulders] That was all.

    MRS. HIGGINS [ironically] Quite sure?

    PICKERING. Absolutely. Really, that was all.

    MRS. HIGGINS. You didn't thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell
    her how splendid she'd been.

    HIGGINS [impatiently] But she knew all about that. We didn't make
    speeches to her, if that's what you mean.

    PICKERING [conscience stricken] Perhaps we were a little inconsiderate.
    Is she very angry?

    MRS. HIGGINS [returning to her place at the writing-table] Well, I'm
    afraid she won't go back to Wimpole Street, especially now that Mr.
    Doolittle is able to keep up the position you have thrust on her; but
    she says she is quite willing to meet you on friendly terms and to let
    bygones be bygones.

    HIGGINS [furious] Is she, by George? Ho!

    MRS. HIGGINS. If you promise to behave yourself, Henry, I'll ask her to
    come down. If not, go home; for you have taken up quite enough of my
    time.

    HIGGINS. Oh, all right. Very well. Pick: you behave yourself. Let us
    put on our best Sunday manners for this creature that we picked out of
    the mud. [He flings himself sulkily into the Elizabethan chair].

    DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, Henry Higgins! have some
    consideration for my feelings as a middle class man.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Remember your promise, Henry. [She presses the
    bell-button on the writing-table]. Mr. Doolittle: will you be so good
    as to step out on the balcony for a moment. I don't want Eliza to have
    the shock of your news until she has made it up with these two
    gentlemen. Would you mind?

    DOOLITTLE. As you wish, lady. Anything to help Henry to keep her off my
    hands. [He disappears through the window].

    The parlor-maid answers the bell. Pickering sits down in Doolittle's
    place.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Ask Miss Doolittle to come down, please.

    THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, mam. [She goes out].

    MRS. HIGGINS. Now, Henry: be good.

    HIGGINS. I am behaving myself perfectly.

    PICKERING. He is doing his best, Mrs. Higgins.

    A pause. Higgins throws back his head; stretches out his legs; and
    begins to whistle.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Henry, dearest, you don't look at all nice in that
    attitude.

    HIGGINS [pulling himself together] I was not trying to look nice,
    mother.

    MRS. HIGGINS. It doesn't matter, dear. I only wanted to make you speak.

    HIGGINS. Why?

    MRS. HIGGINS. Because you can't speak and whistle at the same time.

    Higgins groans. Another very trying pause.

    HIGGINS [springing up, out of patience] Where the devil is that girl?
    Are we to wait here all day?

    Eliza enters, sunny, self-possessed, and giving a staggeringly
    convincing exhibition of ease of manner. She carries a little
    work-basket, and is very much at home. Pickering is too much taken
    aback to rise.

    LIZA. How do you do, Professor Higgins? Are you quite well?

    HIGGINS [choking] Am I-- [He can say no more].

    LIZA. But of course you are: you are never ill. So glad to see you
    again, Colonel Pickering. [He rises hastily; and they shake hands].
    Quite chilly this morning, isn't it? [She sits down on his left. He
    sits beside her].

    HIGGINS. Don't you dare try this game on me. I taught it to you; and it
    doesn't take me in. Get up and come home; and don't be a fool.

    Eliza takes a piece of needlework from her basket, and begins to stitch
    at it, without taking the least notice of this outburst.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Very nicely put, indeed, Henry. No woman could resist
    such an invitation.

    HIGGINS. You let her alone, mother. Let her speak for herself. You will
    jolly soon see whether she has an idea that I haven't put into her head
    or a word that I haven't put into her mouth. I tell you I have created
    this thing out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden; and now
    she pretends to play the fine lady with me.

    MRS. HIGGINS [placidly] Yes, dear; but you'll sit down, won't you?

    Higgins sits down again, savagely.

    LIZA [to Pickering, taking no apparent notice of Higgins, and working
    away deftly] Will you drop me altogether now that the experiment is
    over, Colonel Pickering?

    PICKERING. Oh don't. You mustn't think of it as an experiment. It
    shocks me, somehow.

    LIZA. Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf.

    PICKERING [impulsively] No.

    LIZA [continuing quietly]--but I owe so much to you that I should be
    very unhappy if you forgot me.

    PICKERING. It's very kind of you to say so, Miss Doolittle.

    LIZA. It's not because you paid for my dresses. I know you are generous
    to everybody with money. But it was from you that I learnt really nice
    manners; and that is what makes one a lady, isn't it? You see it was so
    very difficult for me with the example of Professor Higgins always
    before me. I was brought up to be just like him, unable to control
    myself, and using bad language on the slightest provocation. And I
    should never have known that ladies and gentlemen didn't behave like
    that if you hadn't been there.

    HIGGINS. Well!!

    PICKERING. Oh, that's only his way, you know. He doesn't mean it.

    LIZA. Oh, I didn't mean it either, when I was a flower girl. It was
    only my way. But you see I did it; and that's what makes the difference
    after all.

    PICKERING. No doubt. Still, he taught you to speak; and I couldn't have
    done that, you know.

    LIZA [trivially] Of course: that is his profession.

    HIGGINS. Damnation!

    LIZA [continuing] It was just like learning to dance in the fashionable
    way: there was nothing more than that in it. But do you know what began
    my real education?

    PICKERING. What?

    LIZA [stopping her work for a moment] Your calling me Miss Doolittle
    that day when I first came to Wimpole Street. That was the beginning of
    self-respect for me. [She resumes her stitching]. And there were a
    hundred little things you never noticed, because they came naturally to
    you. Things about standing up and taking off your hat and opening
    doors--

    PICKERING. Oh, that was nothing.

    LIZA. Yes: things that showed you thought and felt about me as if I
    were something better than a scullerymaid; though of course I know you
    would have been just the same to a scullery-maid if she had been let in
    the drawing-room. You never took off your boots in the dining room when
    I was there.

    PICKERING. You mustn't mind that. Higgins takes off his boots all over
    the place.

    LIZA. I know. I am not blaming him. It is his way, isn't it? But it
    made such a difference to me that you didn't do it. You see, really and
    truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the
            proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a
    flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall
    always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats
    me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to
    you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Please don't grind your teeth, Henry.

    PICKERING. Well, this is really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.

    LIZA. I should like you to call me Eliza, now, if you would.

    PICKERING. Thank you. Eliza, of course.

    LIZA. And I should like Professor Higgins to call me Miss Doolittle.

    HIGGINS. I'll see you damned first.

    MRS. HIGGINS. Henry! Henry!

    PICKERING [laughing] Why don't you slang back at him? Don't stand it.
    It would do him a lot of good.

    LIZA. I can't. I could have done it once; but now I can't go back to
    it. Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me; and I
    tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use. You
    told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country,
    it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Well, I
    am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can
    speak nothing but yours. That's the real break-off with the corner of
    Tottenham Court Road. Leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.

    PICKERING [much alarmed] Oh! but you're coming back to Wimpole Street,
    aren't you? You'll forgive Higgins?

    HIGGINS [rising] Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go. Let her find
    out how she can get on without us. She will relapse into the gutter in
    three weeks without me at her elbow.

    Doolittle appears at the centre window. With a look of dignified
    reproach at Higgins, he comes slowly and silently to his daughter, who,
    with her back to the window, is unconscious of his approach.

    PICKERING. He's incorrigible, Eliza. You won't relapse, will you?

    LIZA. No: Not now. Never again. I have learnt my lesson. I don't
    believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried. [Doolittle
    touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work, losing her
    self-possession utterly at the spectacle of her father's splendor]
    A--a--a--a--a--ah--ow--ooh!

    HIGGINS [with a crow of triumph] Aha! Just so. A--a--a--a--ahowooh!
    A--a--a--a--ahowooh ! A--a--a--a--ahowooh! Victory! Victory! [He throws
    himself on the divan, folding his arms, and spraddling arrogantly].

    DOOLITTLE. Can you blame the girl? Don't look at me like that, Eliza.
    It ain't my fault. I've come into money.

    LIZA.  You must have touched a millionaire this time, dad.

    DOOLITTLE. I have. But I'm dressed something special today. I'm going
    to St. George's, Hanover Square. Your stepmother is going to marry me.

    LIZA [angrily] You're going to let yourself down to marry that low
    common woman!

    PICKERING [quietly] He ought to, Eliza. [To Doolittle] Why has she
    changed her mind?

    DOOLITTLE [sadly] Intimidated, Governor. Intimidated. Middle class
    morality claims its victim. Won't you put on your hat, Liza, and come
    and see me turned off?

    LIZA. If the Colonel says I must, I--I'll [almost sobbing] I'll demean
    myself. And get insulted for my pains, like enough.

    DOOLITTLE. Don't be afraid: she never comes to words with anyone now,
    poor woman! respectability has broke all the spirit out of her.

    PICKERING [squeezing Eliza's elbow gently] Be kind to them, Eliza. Make
    the best of it.

    LIZA [forcing a little smile for him through her vexation] Oh well,
    just to show there's no ill feeling. I'll be back in a moment. [She
    goes out].

    DOOLITTLE [sitting down beside Pickering] I feel uncommon nervous about
    the ceremony, Colonel. I wish you'd come and see me through it.

    PICKERING. But you've been through it before, man. You were married to
    Eliza's mother.

    DOOLITTLE. Who told you that, Colonel?

    PICKERING. Well, nobody told me. But I concluded naturally--

    DOOLITTLE. No: that ain't the natural way, Colonel: it's only the
    middle class way. My way was always the undeserving way. But don't say
    nothing to Eliza. She don't know: I always had a delicacy about telling
    her.

    PICKERING. Quite right. We'll leave it so, if you don't mind.

    DOOLITTLE. And you'll come to the church, Colonel, and put me through
    straight?

    PICKERING. With pleasure. As far as a bachelor can.

    MRS. HIGGINS. May I come, Mr. Doolittle? I should be very sorry to miss
    your wedding.

    DOOLITTLE. I should indeed be honored by your condescension, ma'am; and
    my poor old woman would take it as a tremenjous compliment. She's been
    very low, thinking of the happy days that are no more.

    MRS. HIGGINS [rising] I'll order the carriage and get ready. [The men
    rise, except Higgins]. I shan't be more than fifteen minutes. [As she
    goes to the door Eliza comes in, hatted and buttoning her gloves]. I'm
    going to the church to see your father married, Eliza. You had better
    come in the brougham with me. Colonel Pickering can go on with the
    bridegroom.

    Mrs. Higgins goes out. Eliza comes to the middle of the room between
    the centre window and the ottoman. Pickering joins her.

    DOOLITTLE. Bridegroom! What a word! It makes a man realize his
    position, somehow. [He takes up his hat and goes towards the door].

    PICKERING. Before I go, Eliza, do forgive him and come back to us.

    LIZA. I don't think papa would allow me. Would you, dad?

    DOOLITTLE [sad but magnanimous] They played you off very cunning,
    Eliza, them two sportsmen. If it had been only one of them, you could
    have nailed him. But you see, there was two; and one of them chaperoned
    the other, as you might say. [To Pickering] It was artful of you,
    Colonel; but I bear no malice: I should have done the same myself. I
    been the victim of one woman after another all my life; and I don't
    grudge you two getting the better of Eliza. I shan't interfere. It's
    time for us to go, Colonel. So long, Henry. See you in St. George's,
    Eliza. [He goes out].

    PICKERING [coaxing] Do stay with us, Eliza. [He follows Doolittle].

    Eliza goes out on the balcony to avoid being alone with Higgins. He
    rises and joins her there. She immediately comes back into the room and
    makes for the door; but he goes along the balcony quickly and gets his
    back to the door before she reaches it.

    HIGGINS. Well, Eliza, you've had a bit of your own back, as you call
    it. Have you had enough? and are you going to be reasonable? Or do you
    want any more?

    LIZA. You want me back only to pick up your slippers and put up with
    your tempers and fetch and carry for you.

    HIGGINS. I haven't said I wanted you back at all.

    LIZA. Oh, indeed. Then what are we talking about?

    HIGGINS. About you, not about me. If you come back I shall treat you
    just as I have always treated you. I can't change my nature; and I
    don't intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as
    Colonel Pickering's.

    LIZA. That's not true. He treats a flower girl as if she was a duchess.

    HIGGINS. And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower girl.

    LIZA. I see. [She turns away composedly, and sits on the ottoman,
    facing the window]. The same to everybody.

    HIGGINS. Just so.

    LIZA. Like father.

    HIGGINS [grinning, a little taken down] Without accepting the
    comparison at all points, Eliza, it's quite true that your father is
    not a snob, and that he will be quite at home in any station of life to
    which his eccentric destiny may call him. [Seriously] The great secret,
    Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other
    particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human
    souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no
    third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

    LIZA. Amen. You are a born preacher.

    HIGGINS [irritated] The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but
    whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better.

    LIZA [with sudden sincerity] I don't care how you treat me. I don't
    mind your swearing at me. I don't mind a black eye: I've had one before
    this. But [standing up and facing him] I won't be passed over.

    HIGGINS. Then get out of my way; for I won't stop for you. You talk
    about me as if I were a motor bus.

    LIZA. So you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no consideration
    for anyone. But I can do without you: don't think I can't.

    HIGGINS. I know you can. I told you you could.

    LIZA [wounded, getting away from him to the other side of the ottoman
    with her face to the hearth] I know you did, you brute. You wanted to
    get rid of me.

    HIGGINS. Liar.

    LIZA. Thank you. [She sits down with dignity].

    HIGGINS. You never asked yourself, I suppose, whether I could do
    without YOU.

    LIZA [earnestly] Don't you try to get round me. You'll HAVE to do
    without me.

    HIGGINS [arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own
    spark of divine fire. But [with sudden humility] I shall miss you,
    Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have learnt something
    from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I
    have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.

    LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book
    of photographs. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn the
    machine on. It's got no feelings to hurt.

    HIGGINS. I can't turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you
    can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.

    LIZA. Oh, you ARE a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as
    some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs. Pearce warned me. Time and
    again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the
    last minute. And you don't care a bit for her. And you don't care a bit
    for me.

    HIGGINS. I care for life, for humanity; and you are a part of it that
    has come my way and been built into my house. What more can you or
    anyone ask?

    LIZA. I won't care for anybody that doesn't care for me.

    HIGGINS. Commercial principles, Eliza. Like [reproducing her Covent
    Garden pronunciation with professional exactness] s'yollin voylets
    [selling violets], isn't it?

    LIZA. Don't sneer at me. It's mean to sneer at me.

    HIGGINS. I have never sneered in my life. Sneering doesn't become
    either the human face or the human soul. I am expressing my righteous
    contempt for Commercialism. I don't and won't trade in affection. You
    call me a brute because you couldn't buy a claim on me by fetching my
    slippers and finding my spectacles. You were a fool: I think a woman
    fetching a man's slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever fetch YOUR
    slippers? I think a good deal more of you for throwing them in my face.
    No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be cared for: who
    cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good
    fellowship; for you'll get nothing else. You've had a thousand times as
    much out of me as I have out of you; and if you dare to set up your
    little dog's tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my
    creation of a Duchess Eliza, I'll slam the door in your silly face.

    LIZA. What did you do it for if you didn't care for me?

    HIGGINS [heartily] Why, because it was my job.

    LIZA. You never thought of the trouble it would make for me.

    HIGGINS. Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been
    afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble. There's
    only one way of escaping trouble; and that's killing things. Cowards,
    you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.

    LIZA. I'm no preacher: I don't notice things like that. I notice that
    you don't notice me.

    HIGGINS [jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: you're an
    idiot. I waste the treasures of my Miltonic mind by spreading them
    before you. Once for all, understand that I go my way and do my work
    without caring twopence what happens to either of us. I am not
    intimidated, like your father and your stepmother. So you can come back
    or go to the devil: which you please.

    LIZA. What am I to come back for?

    HIGGINS [bouncing up on his knees on the ottoman and leaning over it to
    her] For the fun of it. That's why I took you on.

    LIZA [with averted face] And you may throw me out tomorrow if I don't
    do everything you want me to?

    HIGGINS. Yes; and you may walk out tomorrow if I don't do everything
    YOU want me to.

    LIZA. And live with my stepmother?

    HIGGINS. Yes, or sell flowers.

    LIZA. Oh! if I only COULD go back to my flower basket! I should be
    independent of both you and father and all the world! Why did you take
    my independence from me? Why did I give it up? I'm a slave now, for all
    my fine clothes.

    HIGGINS. Not a bit. I'll adopt you as my daughter and settle money on
    you if you like. Or would you rather marry Pickering?

    LIZA [looking fiercely round at him] I wouldn't marry YOU if you asked
    me; and you're nearer my age than what he is.

    HIGGINS [gently] Than he is: not "than what he is."

    LIZA [losing her temper and rising] I'll talk as I like. You're not my
    teacher now.

    HIGGINS [reflectively] I don't suppose Pickering would, though. He's as
    confirmed an old bachelor as I am.

    LIZA. That's not what I want; and don't you think it. I've always had
    chaps enough wanting me that way. Freddy Hill writes to me twice and
    three times a day, sheets and sheets.

    HIGGINS [disagreeably surprised] Damn his impudence! [He recoils and
    finds himself sitting on his heels].

    LIZA. He has a right to if he likes, poor lad. And he does love me.

    HIGGINS [getting off the ottoman] You have no right to encourage him.

    LIZA. Every girl has a right to be loved.

    HIGGINS. What! By fools like that?

    LIZA. Freddy's not a fool. And if he's weak and poor and wants me, may
    be he'd make me happier than my betters that bully me and don't want me.

    HIGGINS. Can he MAKE anything of you? That's the point.

    LIZA. Perhaps I could make something of him. But I never thought of us
    making anything of one another; and you never think of anything else. I
    only want to be natural.

    HIGGINS. In short, you want me to be as infatuated about you as Freddy?
    Is that it?

    LIZA. No I don't. That's not the sort of feeling I want from you. And
    don't you be too sure of yourself or of me. I could have been a bad
    girl if I'd liked. I've seen more of some things than you, for all your
    learning. Girls like me can drag gentlemen down to make love to them
    easy enough. And they wish each other dead the next minute.

    HIGGINS. Of course they do. Then what in thunder are we quarrelling
    about?

    LIZA [much troubled] I want a little kindness. I know I'm a common
    ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman; but I'm not dirt under
    your feet. What I done [correcting herself] what I did was not for the
    dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were pleasant together and I
    come--came--to care for you; not to want you to make love to me, and
    not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly like.

    HIGGINS. Well, of course. That's just how I feel. And how Pickering
    feels. Eliza: you're a fool.

    LIZA. That's not a proper answer to give me [she sinks on the chair at
    the writing-table in tears].

    HIGGINS. It's all you'll get until you stop being a common idiot. If
    you're going to be a lady, you'll have to give up feeling neglected if
    the men you know don't spend half their time snivelling over you and
    the other half giving you black eyes. If you can't stand the coldness
    of my sort of life, and the strain of it, go back to the gutter. Work
    til you are more a brute than a human being; and then cuddle and
    squabble and drink til you fall asleep. Oh, it's a fine life, the life
    of the gutter. It's real: it's warm: it's violent: you can feel it
    through the thickest skin: you can taste it and smell it without any
    training or any work. Not like Science and Literature and Classical
    Music and Philosophy and Art. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish,
    don't you? Very well: be off with you to the sort of people you like.
    Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and a thick
    pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots to kick you
    with. If you can't appreciate what you've got, you'd better get what
    you can appreciate.

    LIZA [desperate] Oh, you are a cruel tyrant. I can't talk to you: you
    turn everything against me: I'm always in the wrong. But you know very
    well all the time that you're nothing but a bully. You know I can't go
    back to the gutter, as you call it, and that I have no real friends in
    the world but you and the Colonel. You know well I couldn't bear to
    live with a low common man after you two; and it's wicked and cruel of
    you to insult me by pretending I could. You think I must go back to
    Wimpole Street because I have nowhere else to go but father's. But
    don't you be too sure that you have me under your feet to be trampled
    on and talked down. I'll marry Freddy, I will, as soon as he's able to
    support me.

    HIGGINS [sitting down beside her] Rubbish! you shall marry an
    ambassador. You shall marry the Governor-General of India or the
    Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or somebody who wants a deputy-queen. I'm
    not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy.

    LIZA. You think I like you to say that. But I haven't forgot what you
    said a minute ago; and I won't be coaxed round as if I was a baby or a
    puppy. If I can't have kindness, I'll have independence.

    HIGGINS. Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all
    dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

    LIZA [rising determinedly] I'll let you see whether I'm dependent on
    you. If you can preach, I can teach. I'll go and be a teacher.

    HIGGINS. What'll you teach, in heaven's name?

    LIZA. What you taught me. I'll teach phonetics.

    HIGGINS. Ha! Ha! Ha!

    LIZA. I'll offer myself as an assistant to Professor Nepean.

    HIGGINS [rising in a fury] What! That impostor! that humbug! that
    toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods! my discoveries! You take one
    step in his direction and I'll wring your neck. [He lays hands on her].
    Do you hear?

    LIZA [defiantly non-resistant] Wring away. What do I care? I knew you'd
    strike me some day. [He lets her go, stamping with rage at having
    forgotten himself, and recoils so hastily that he stumbles back into
    his seat on the ottoman]. Aha! Now I know how to deal with you. What a
    fool I was not to think of it before! You can't take away the knowledge
    you gave me. You said I had a finer ear than you. And I can be civil
    and kind to people, which is more than you can. Aha! That's done you,
    Henry Higgins, it has. Now I don't care that [snapping her fingers] for
    your bullying and your big talk. I'll advertize it in the papers that
    your duchess is only a flower girl that you taught, and that she'll
    teach anybody to be a duchess just the same in six months for a
    thousand guineas. Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet
    and being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only to
    lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself.

    HIGGINS [wondering at her] You damned impudent slut, you! But it's
    better than snivelling; better than fetching slippers and finding
    spectacles, isn't it? [Rising] By George, Eliza, I said I'd make a
    woman of you; and I have. I like you like this.

    LIZA. Yes: you turn round and make up to me now that I'm not afraid of
    you, and can do without you.

    HIGGINS. Of course I do, you little fool. Five minutes ago you were
    like a millstone round my neck. Now you're a tower of strength: a
    consort battleship. You and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors
    together instead of only two men and a silly girl.

    Mrs. Higgins returns, dressed for the wedding. Eliza instantly becomes
    cool and elegant.

    MRS. HIGGINS. The carriage is waiting, Eliza. Are you ready?

    LIZA. Quite. Is the Professor coming?

    MRS. HIGGINS. Certainly not. He can't behave himself in church. He
    makes remarks out loud all the time on the clergyman's pronunciation.

    LIZA. Then I shall not see you again, Professor. Good bye. [She goes to
    the door].

    MRS. HIGGINS [coming to Higgins] Good-bye, dear.

    HIGGINS. Good-bye, mother. [He is about to kiss her, when he recollects
    something]. Oh, by the way, Eliza, order a ham and a Stilton cheese,
    will you? And buy me a pair of reindeer gloves, number eights, and a
    tie to match that new suit of mine, at Eale & Binman's. You can choose
    the color. [His cheerful, careless, vigorous voice shows that he is
    incorrigible].

    LIZA [disdainfully] Buy them yourself. [She sweeps out].

    MRS. HIGGINS. I'm afraid you've spoiled that girl, Henry. But never
    mind, dear: I'll buy you the tie and gloves.

    HIGGINS [sunnily] Oh, don't bother. She'll buy em all right enough.
    Good-bye.

    They kiss. Mrs. Higgins runs out. Higgins, left alone, rattles his cash
    in his pocket; chuckles; and disports himself in a highly
    self-satisfied manner.

    ***********************

    The rest of the story need not be shown in action, and indeed, would
    hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their
    lazy dependence on the ready-makes and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in
    which Romance keeps its stock of "happy endings" to misfit all stories.
    Now, the history of Eliza Doolittle, though called a romance because of
    the transfiguration it records seems exceedingly improbable, is common
    enough. Such transfigurations have been achieved by hundreds of
    resolutely ambitious young women since Nell Gwynne set them the example
    by playing queens and fascinating kings in the theatre in which she
    began by selling oranges. Nevertheless, people in all directions have
    assumed, for no other reason than that she became the heroine of a
    romance, that she must have married the hero of it. This is unbearable,
    not only because her little drama, if acted on such a thoughtless
    assumption, must be spoiled, but because the true sequel is patent to
    anyone with a sense of human nature in general, and of feminine
    instinct in particular.

    Eliza, in telling Higgins she would not marry him if he asked her, was
    not coquetting: she was announcing a well-considered decision. When a
    bachelor interests, and dominates, and teaches, and becomes important
    to a spinster, as Higgins with Eliza, she always, if she has character
    enough to be capable of it, considers very seriously indeed whether she
    will play for becoming that bachelor's wife, especially if he is so
    little interested in marriage that a determined and devoted woman might
    capture him if she set herself resolutely to do it. Her decision will
    depend a good deal on whether she is really free to choose; and that,
    again, will depend on her age and income. If she is at the end of her
    youth, and has no security for her livelihood, she will marry him
    because she must marry anybody who will provide for her. But at Eliza's
    age a good-looking girl does not feel that pressure; she feels free to
    pick and choose. She is therefore guided by her instinct in the matter.
    Eliza's instinct tells her not to marry Higgins. It does not tell her
    to give him up. It is not in the slightest doubt as to his remaining
    one of the strongest personal interests in her life. It would be very
    sorely strained if there was another woman likely to supplant her with
    him. But as she feels sure of him on that last point, she has no doubt
    at all as to her course, and would not have any, even if the difference
    of twenty years in age, which seems so great to youth, did not exist
    between them.

    As our own instincts are not appealed to by her conclusion, let us see
    whether we cannot discover some reason in it. When Higgins excused his
    indifference to young women on the ground that they had an irresistible
    rival in his mother, he gave the clue to his inveterate
    old-bachelordom. The case is uncommon only to the extent that
    remarkable mothers are uncommon. If an imaginative boy has a
    sufficiently rich mother who has intelligence, personal grace, dignity
    of character without harshness, and a cultivated sense of the best art
    of her time to enable her to make her house beautiful, she sets a
    standard for him against which very few women can struggle, besides
    effecting for him a disengagement of his affections, his sense of
    beauty, and his idealism from his specifically sexual impulses. This
    makes him a standing puzzle to the huge number of uncultivated people
    who have been brought up in tasteless homes by commonplace or
    disagreeable parents, and to whom, consequently, literature, painting,
    sculpture, music, and affectionate personal relations come as modes of
    sex if they come at all. The word passion means nothing else to them;
    and that Higgins could have a passion for phonetics and idealize his
    mother instead of Eliza, would seem to them absurd and unnatural.
    Nevertheless, when we look round and see that hardly anyone is too ugly
    or disagreeable to find a wife or a husband if he or she wants one,
    whilst many old maids and bachelors are above the average in quality
    and culture, we cannot help suspecting that the disentanglement of sex
    from the associations with which it is so commonly confused, a
    disentanglement which persons of genius achieve by sheer intellectual
    analysis, is sometimes produced or aided by parental fascination.

    Now, though Eliza was incapable of thus explaining to herself Higgins's
    formidable powers of resistance to the charm that prostrated Freddy at
    the first glance, she was instinctively aware that she could never
    obtain a complete grip of him, or come between him and his mother (the
            first necessity of the married woman). To put it shortly, she knew that
    for some mysterious reason he had not the makings of a married man in
    him, according to her conception of a husband as one to whom she would
    be his nearest and fondest and warmest interest. Even had there been no
    mother-rival, she would still have refused to accept an interest in
    herself that was secondary to philosophic interests. Had Mrs. Higgins
    died, there would still have been Milton and the Universal Alphabet.
    Landor's remark that to those who have the greatest power of loving,
    love is a secondary affair, would not have recommended Landor to Eliza.
    Put that along with her resentment of Higgins's domineering
    superiority, and her mistrust of his coaxing cleverness in getting
    round her and evading her wrath when he had gone too far with his
    impetuous bullying, and you will see that Eliza's instinct had good
    grounds for warning her not to marry her Pygmalion.

    And now, whom did Eliza marry? For if Higgins was a predestinate old
    bachelor, she was most certainly not a predestinate old maid. Well,
    that can be told very shortly to those who have not guessed it from the
    indications she has herself given them.

    Almost immediately after Eliza is stung into proclaiming her considered
    determination not to marry Higgins, she mentions the fact that young
    Mr. Frederick Eynsford Hill is pouring out his love for her daily
    through the post. Now Freddy is young, practically twenty years younger
    than Higgins: he is a gentleman (or, as Eliza would qualify him, a
            toff), and speaks like one; he is nicely dressed, is treated by the
    Colonel as an equal, loves her unaffectedly, and is not her master, nor
    ever likely to dominate her in spite of his advantage of social
    standing. Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all
    women love to be mastered, if not actually bullied and beaten. "When
    you go to women," says Nietzsche, "take your whip with you." Sensible
    despots have never confined that precaution to women: they have taken
    their whips with them when they have dealt with men, and been slavishly
    idealized by the men over whom they have flourished the whip much more
    than by women. No doubt there are slavish women as well as slavish men;
    and women, like men, admire those that are stronger than themselves.
    But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person's
    thumb are two different things. The weak may not be admired and
    hero-worshipped; but they are by no means disliked or shunned; and they
    never seem to have the least difficulty in marrying people who are too
    good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but life is not one long
    emergency: it is mostly a string of situations for which no exceptional
    strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if
    they have a stronger partner to help them out. Accordingly, it is a
    truth everywhere in evidence that strong people, masculine or feminine,
    not only do not marry stronger people, but do not show any preference
    for them in selecting their friends. When a lion meets another with a
    louder roar "the first lion thinks the last a bore." The man or woman
    who feels strong enough for two, seeks for every other quality in a
    partner than strength.

    The converse is also true. Weak people want to marry strong people who
    do not frighten them too much; and this often leads them to make the
    mistake we describe metaphorically as "biting off more than they can
    chew." They want too much for too little; and when the bargain is
    unreasonable beyond all bearing, the union becomes impossible: it ends
    in the weaker party being either discarded or borne as a cross, which
    is worse. People who are not only weak, but silly or obtuse as well,
    are often in these difficulties.

    This being the state of human affairs, what is Eliza fairly sure to do
    when she is placed between Freddy and Higgins? Will she look forward to
    a lifetime of fetching Higgins's slippers or to a lifetime of Freddy
    fetching hers? There can be no doubt about the answer. Unless Freddy is
    biologically repulsive to her, and Higgins biologically attractive to a
    degree that overwhelms all her other instincts, she will, if she
    marries either of them, marry Freddy.

    And that is just what Eliza did.

    Complications ensued; but they were economic, not romantic. Freddy had
    no money and no occupation. His mother's jointure, a last relic of the
    opulence of Largelady Park, had enabled her to struggle along in
    Earlscourt with an air of gentility, but not to procure any serious
    secondary education for her children, much less give the boy a
    profession. A clerkship at thirty shillings a week was beneath Freddy's
    dignity, and extremely distasteful to him besides. His prospects
    consisted of a hope that if he kept up appearances somebody would do
    something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as
    a private secretaryship or a sinecure of some sort. To his mother it
    perhaps appeared as a marriage to some lady of means who could not
    resist her boy's niceness. Fancy her feelings when he married a flower
    girl who had become declassee under extraordinary circumstances which
    were now notorious!

    It is true that Eliza's situation did not seem wholly ineligible. Her
    father, though formerly a dustman, and now fantastically disclassed,
    had become extremely popular in the smartest society by a social talent
    which triumphed over every prejudice and every disadvantage. Rejected
    by the middle class, which he loathed, he had shot up at once into the
    highest circles by his wit, his dustmanship (which he carried like a
            banner), and his Nietzschean transcendence of good and evil. At
    intimate ducal dinners he sat on the right hand of the Duchess; and in
    country houses he smoked in the pantry and was made much of by the
    butler when he was not feeding in the dining-room and being consulted
    by cabinet ministers. But he found it almost as hard to do all this on
    four thousand a year as Mrs. Eynsford Hill to live in Earlscourt on an
    income so pitiably smaller that I have not the heart to disclose its
    exact figure. He absolutely refused to add the last straw to his burden
    by contributing to Eliza's support.

    Thus Freddy and Eliza, now Mr. and Mrs. Eynsford Hill, would have spent
    a penniless honeymoon but for a wedding present of 500 pounds from the
    Colonel to Eliza. It lasted a long time because Freddy did not know how
    to spend money, never having had any to spend, and Eliza, socially
    trained by a pair of old bachelors, wore her clothes as long as they
    held together and looked pretty, without the least regard to their
    being many months out of fashion. Still, 500 pounds will not last two
    young people for ever; and they both knew, and Eliza felt as well, that
    they must shift for themselves in the end. She could quarter herself on
    Wimpole Street because it had come to be her home; but she was quite
    aware that she ought not to quarter Freddy there, and that it would not
    be good for his character if she did.

    Not that the Wimpole Street bachelors objected. When she consulted
    them, Higgins declined to be bothered about her housing problem when
    that solution was so simple. Eliza's desire to have Freddy in the house
    with her seemed of no more importance than if she had wanted an extra
    piece of bedroom furniture. Pleas as to Freddy's character, and the
    moral obligation on him to earn his own living, were lost on Higgins.
    He denied that Freddy had any character, and declared that if he tried
    to do any useful work some competent person would have the trouble of
    undoing it: a procedure involving a net loss to the community, and
    great unhappiness to Freddy himself, who was obviously intended by
    Nature for such light work as amusing Eliza, which, Higgins declared,
    was a much more useful and honorable occupation than working in the
    city. When Eliza referred again to her project of teaching phonetics,
    Higgins abated not a jot of his violent opposition to it. He said she
    was not within ten years of being qualified to meddle with his pet
    subject; and as it was evident that the Colonel agreed with him, she
    felt she could not go against them in this grave matter, and that she
    had no right, without Higgins's consent, to exploit the knowledge he
    had given her; for his knowledge seemed to her as much his private
    property as his watch: Eliza was no communist. Besides, she was
    superstitiously devoted to them both, more entirely and frankly after
    her marriage than before it.

    It was the Colonel who finally solved the problem, which had cost him
    much perplexed cogitation. He one day asked Eliza, rather shyly,
    whether she had quite given up her notion of keeping a flower shop. She
    replied that she had thought of it, but had put it out of her head,
    because the Colonel had said, that day at Mrs. Higgins's, that it would
    never do. The Colonel confessed that when he said that, he had not
    quite recovered from the dazzling impression of the day before. They
    broke the matter to Higgins that evening. The sole comment vouchsafed
    by him very nearly led to a serious quarrel with Eliza. It was to the
    effect that she would have in Freddy an ideal errand boy.

    Freddy himself was next sounded on the subject. He said he had been
    thinking of a shop himself; though it had presented itself to his
    pennilessness as a small place in which Eliza should sell tobacco at
    one counter whilst he sold newspapers at the opposite one. But he
    agreed that it would be extraordinarily jolly to go early every morning
    with Eliza to Covent Garden and buy flowers on the scene of their first
    meeting: a sentiment which earned him many kisses from his wife. He
    added that he had always been afraid to propose anything of the sort,
    because Clara would make an awful row about a step that must damage her
    matrimonial chances, and his mother could not be expected to like it
    after clinging for so many years to that step of the social ladder on
    which retail trade is impossible.

    This difficulty was removed by an event highly unexpected by Freddy's
    mother. Clara, in the course of her incursions into those artistic
    circles which were the highest within her reach, discovered that her
    conversational qualifications were expected to include a grounding in
    the novels of Mr. H.G. Wells. She borrowed them in various directions
    so energetically that she swallowed them all within two months. The
    result was a conversion of a kind quite common today. A modern Acts of
    the Apostles would fill fifty whole Bibles if anyone were capable of
    writing it.

    Poor Clara, who appeared to Higgins and his mother as a disagreeable
    and ridiculous person, and to her own mother as in some inexplicable
    way a social failure, had never seen herself in either light; for,
    though to some extent ridiculed and mimicked in West Kensington like
    everybody else there, she was accepted as a rational and normal--or
    shall we say inevitable?--sort of human being. At worst they called her
    The Pusher; but to them no more than to herself had it ever occurred
    that she was pushing the air, and pushing it in a wrong direction.
    Still, she was not happy. She was growing desperate. Her one asset, the
    fact that her mother was what the Epsom greengrocer called a carriage
    lady had no exchange value, apparently. It had prevented her from
    getting educated, because the only education she could have afforded
    was education with the Earlscourt green grocer's daughter. It had led
    her to seek the society of her mother's class; and that class simply
    would not have her, because she was much poorer than the greengrocer,
    and, far from being able to afford a maid, could not afford even a
    housemaid, and had to scrape along at home with an illiberally treated
    general servant. Under such circumstances nothing could give her an air
    of being a genuine product of Largelady Park. And yet its tradition
    made her regard a marriage with anyone within her reach as an
    unbearable humiliation. Commercial people and professional people in a
    small way were odious to her. She ran after painters and novelists; but
    she did not charm them; and her bold attempts to pick up and practise
    artistic and literary talk irritated them. She was, in short, an utter
    failure, an ignorant, incompetent, pretentious, unwelcome, penniless,
    useless little snob; and though she did not admit these
    disqualifications (for nobody ever faces unpleasant truths of this kind
            until the possibility of a way out dawns on them) she felt their
    effects too keenly to be satisfied with her position.

    Clara had a startling eyeopener when, on being suddenly wakened to
    enthusiasm by a girl of her own age who dazzled her and produced in her
    a gushing desire to take her for a model, and gain her friendship, she
    discovered that this exquisite apparition had graduated from the gutter
    in a few months' time. It shook her so violently, that when Mr. H. G.
    Wells lifted her on the point of his puissant pen, and placed her at
    the angle of view from which the life she was leading and the society
    to which she clung appeared in its true relation to real human needs
    and worthy social structure, he effected a conversion and a conviction
    of sin comparable to the most sensational feats of General Booth or
    Gypsy Smith. Clara's snobbery went bang. Life suddenly began to move
    with her. Without knowing how or why, she began to make friends and
    enemies. Some of the acquaintances to whom she had been a tedious or
    indifferent or ridiculous affliction, dropped her: others became
    cordial. To her amazement she found that some "quite nice" people were
    saturated with Wells, and that this accessibility to ideas was the
    secret of their niceness. People she had thought deeply religious, and
    had tried to conciliate on that tack with disastrous results, suddenly
    took an interest in her, and revealed a hostility to conventional
    religion which she had never conceived possible except among the most
    desperate characters. They made her read Galsworthy; and Galsworthy
    exposed the vanity of Largelady Park and finished her. It exasperated
    her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many
    unhappy years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she
    had so carefully struggled with and stifled for the sake of keeping
    well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have
    come into any sort of sincere human contact. In the radiance of these
    discoveries, and the tumult of their reaction, she made a fool of
    herself as freely and conspicuously as when she so rashly adopted
    Eliza's expletive in Mrs. Higgins's drawing-room; for the new-born
    Wellsian had to find her bearings almost as ridiculously as a baby; but
    nobody hates a baby for its ineptitudes, or thinks the worse of it for
    trying to eat the matches; and Clara lost no friends by her follies.
    They laughed at her to her face this time; and she had to defend
    herself and fight it out as best she could.

    When Freddy paid a visit to Earlscourt (which he never did when he
            could possibly help it) to make the desolating announcement that he and
    his Eliza were thinking of blackening the Largelady scutcheon by
    opening a shop, he found the little household already convulsed by a
    prior announcement from Clara that she also was going to work in an old
    furniture shop in Dover Street, which had been started by a fellow
    Wellsian. This appointment Clara owed, after all, to her old social
    accomplishment of Push. She had made up her mind that, cost what it
    might, she would see Mr. Wells in the flesh; and she had achieved her
    end at a garden party. She had better luck than so rash an enterprise
    deserved. Mr. Wells came up to her expectations. Age had not withered
    him, nor could custom stale his infinite variety in half an hour. His
    pleasant neatness and compactness, his small hands and feet, his
    teeming ready brain, his unaffected accessibility, and a certain fine
    apprehensiveness which stamped him as susceptible from his topmost hair
    to his tipmost toe, proved irresistible. Clara talked of nothing else
    for weeks and weeks afterwards. And as she happened to talk to the lady
    of the furniture shop, and that lady also desired above all things to
    know Mr. Wells and sell pretty things to him, she offered Clara a job
    on the chance of achieving that end through her.

    And so it came about that Eliza's luck held, and the expected
    opposition to the flower shop melted away. The shop is in the arcade of
    a railway station not very far from the Victoria and Albert Museum; and
    if you live in that neighborhood you may go there any day and buy a
    buttonhole from Eliza.

    Now here is a last opportunity for romance. Would you not like to be
    assured that the shop was an immense success, thanks to Eliza's charms
    and her early business experience in Covent Garden? Alas! the truth is
    the truth: the shop did not pay for a long time, simply because Eliza
    and her Freddy did not know how to keep it. True, Eliza had not to
    begin at the very beginning: she knew the names and prices of the
    cheaper flowers; and her elation was unbounded when she found that
    Freddy, like all youths educated at cheap, pretentious, and thoroughly
    inefficient schools, knew a little Latin. It was very little, but
    enough to make him appear to her a Porson or Bentley, and to put him at
    his ease with botanical nomenclature. Unfortunately he knew nothing
    else; and Eliza, though she could count money up to eighteen shillings
    or so, and had acquired a certain familiarity with the language of
    Milton from her struggles to qualify herself for winning Higgins's bet,
    could not write out a bill without utterly disgracing the
    establishment. Freddy's power of stating in Latin that Balbus built a
    wall and that Gaul was divided into three parts did not carry with it
    the slightest knowledge of accounts or business: Colonel Pickering had
    to explain to him what a cheque book and a bank account meant. And the
    pair were by no means easily teachable. Freddy backed up Eliza in her
    obstinate refusal to believe that they could save money by engaging a
    bookkeeper with some knowledge of the business. How, they argued, could
    you possibly save money by going to extra expense when you already
    could not make both ends meet? But the Colonel, after making the ends
    meet over and over again, at last gently insisted; and Eliza, humbled
    to the dust by having to beg from him so often, and stung by the
    uproarious derision of Higgins, to whom the notion of Freddy succeeding
    at anything was a joke that never palled, grasped the fact that
    business, like phonetics, has to be learned.

    On the piteous spectacle of the pair spending their evenings in
    shorthand schools and polytechnic classes, learning bookkeeping and
    typewriting with incipient junior clerks, male and female, from the
    elementary schools, let me not dwell. There were even classes at the
    London School of Economics, and a humble personal appeal to the
    director of that institution to recommend a course bearing on the
    flower business. He, being a humorist, explained to them the method of
    the celebrated Dickensian essay on Chinese Metaphysics by the gentleman
    who read an article on China and an article on Metaphysics and combined
    the information. He suggested that they should combine the London
    School with Kew Gardens. Eliza, to whom the procedure of the Dickensian
    gentleman seemed perfectly correct (as in fact it was) and not in the
    least funny (which was only her ignorance) took his advice with entire
    gravity. But the effort that cost her the deepest humiliation was a
    request to Higgins, whose pet artistic fancy, next to Milton's verse,
    was calligraphy, and who himself wrote a most beautiful Italian hand,
    that he would teach her to write. He declared that she was congenitally
    incapable of forming a single letter worthy of the least of Milton's
    words; but she persisted; and again he suddenly threw himself into the
    task of teaching her with a combination of stormy intensity,
    concentrated patience, and occasional bursts of interesting
    disquisition on the beauty and nobility, the august mission and
    destiny, of human handwriting. Eliza ended by acquiring an extremely
    uncommercial script which was a positive extension of her personal
    beauty, and spending three times as much on stationery as anyone else
    because certain qualities and shapes of paper became indispensable to
    her. She could not even address an envelope in the usual way because it
    made the margins all wrong.

    Their commercial school days were a period of disgrace and despair for
    the young couple. They seemed to be learning nothing about flower
    shops. At last they gave it up as hopeless, and shook the dust of the
    shorthand schools, and the polytechnics, and the London School of
    Economics from their feet for ever. Besides, the business was in some
    mysterious way beginning to take care of itself. They had somehow
    forgotten their objections to employing other people. They came to the
    conclusion that their own way was the best, and that they had really a
    remarkable talent for business. The Colonel, who had been compelled for
    some years to keep a sufficient sum on current account at his bankers
    to make up their deficits, found that the provision was unnecessary:
    the young people were prospering. It is true that there was not quite
    fair play between them and their competitors in trade. Their week-ends
    in the country cost them nothing, and saved them the price of their
    Sunday dinners; for the motor car was the Colonel's; and he and Higgins
    paid the hotel bills. Mr. F. Hill, florist and greengrocer (they soon
            discovered that there was money in asparagus; and asparagus led to
            other vegetables), had an air which stamped the business as classy; and
    in private life he was still Frederick Eynsford Hill, Esquire. Not that
    there was any swank about him: nobody but Eliza knew that he had been
    christened Frederick Challoner. Eliza herself swanked like anything.

    That is all. That is how it has turned out. It is astonishing how much
    Eliza still manages to meddle in the housekeeping at Wimpole Street in
    spite of the shop and her own family. And it is notable that though she
    never nags her husband, and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were
    his favorite daughter, she has never got out of the habit of nagging
    Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet
    for him. She snaps his head off on the faintest provocation, or on
    none. He no longer dares to tease her by assuming an abysmal
    inferiority of Freddy's mind to his own. He storms and bullies and
    derides; but she stands up to him so ruthlessly that the Colonel has to
    ask her from time to time to be kinder to Higgins; and it is the only
    request of his that brings a mulish expression into her face. Nothing
    but some emergency or calamity great enough to break down all likes and
    dislikes, and throw them both back on their common humanity--and may
    they be spared any such trial!--will ever alter this. She knows that
    Higgins does not need her, just as her father did not need her. The
    very scrupulousness with which he told her that day that he had become
    used to having her there, and dependent on her for all sorts of little
    services, and that he should miss her if she went away (it would never
            have occurred to Freddy or the Colonel to say anything of the sort)
    deepens her inner certainty that she is "no more to him than them
    slippers", yet she has a sense, too, that his indifference is deeper
    than the infatuation of commoner souls. She is immensely interested in
    him. She has even secret mischievous moments in which she wishes she
    could get him alone, on a desert island, away from all ties and with
    nobody else in the world to consider, and just drag him off his
    pedestal and see him making love like any common man. We all have
    private imaginations of that sort. But when it comes to business, to
    the life that she really leads as distinguished from the life of dreams
    and fancies, she likes Freddy and she likes the Colonel; and she does
    not like Higgins and Mr. Doolittle. Galatea never does quite like
    Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether
    agreeable.

In Covent Garden, the Eynsford Hills wait for a cab in the rain. When Freddy goes to hail one, he knocks Liza's flowers out of her basket. She accepts money from Freddy's mother, then Colonel Pickering. A bystander warns her that a man is writing down what she is saying, and she confronts him, saying that she has done nothing wrong. Higgins amazes the crowd by imitating her accent and guessing where they all come from. Pickering and Higgins meet and agree to have dinner, and Higgins fills Liza's basket with money before he leaves. Liza leaves in a cab. The next day, Liza intrudes upon Pickering and Higgins in Higgins's home. She wants English lessons, and Pickering bets that Higgins could not pass her off as a lady at the ambassador's ball in a month's time. Mrs. Pearce takes Liza away to bathe her and dress her more appropriately, and Liza's father arrives and demands some payment. Higgins likes him and gives him five pounds. A few months later, Mrs. Higgins is writing letters at home when she is interrupted by her son, who shocks her by telling her that he is bringing a flower-girl to his house. The Eynsford Hills arrive for a visit, as does Eliza--with her newly elegant accent and manner. Freddy is infatuated right away. Eliza makes the mistake of swearing and describing her aunt's alcoholism, and she is hustled away by Higgins. Clara thinks that swearing is the new fashion and shocks her mother by saying "bloody" on the way out. Mrs. Higgins scolds Pickering and her son for not considering what is to be done with Eliza after the experiment. At midnight at Higgins's house, Eliza enters looking exhausted. Higgins ignores her, looking for his slippers and crowing over her success at fooling everyone as his own. Eliza begins to look furious. When Higgins asks where his slippers are, Eliza throws them at his face. She explains that she does not know what to do with herself now that Higgins has transformed her. He suggests that she marry, to which she responds that she used to be something better than a prostitute when she sold flowers. She throws the ring that he gave her into the fireplace, and he loses his temper at her and leaves the room. She looks for the ring in the ashes. Mrs. Higgins is in her drawing room when her son comes and tells her that Eliza has run away. Doolittle arrives and announces that after he spoke with Higgins, Higgins recommended him as a speaker to an American millionaire who died and left him everything. Doolittle is now middle-class and hating every minute of it; his mistress is forcing him to marry her that afternoon. Eliza comes downstairs , and Higgins looks flabbergasted. Doolittle invites Pickering and Mrs. Higgins to the wedding, and they leave Eliza and Higgins alone to talk. Eliza says that she does not want to be treated like a pair of slippers--and Freddy writes her love letters every day. When she threatens to become a phonetics teacher herself and use Higgins's methods, he says that he likes the new, stronger version of Eliza. He wants to live with her and Pickering as "three bachelors." Mrs. Higgins returns dressed for the wedding, and she takes Eliza with her. Higgins asks her to run his errands for him, including that of buying some cheese and ham. She says a final goodbye to him, and he seems confident that she will follow his command. The onstage drama ends, and Shaw narrates, in an epilogue, that Eliza recognizes Higgins as predestined to be a bachelor; she marries Freddy instead. With a gift from Colonel Pickering, Eliza opens a flower shop. The only person truly bothered by this state of affairs is Clara, who decides that the marriage will not help her own marriage prospects. But then she begins to read H.G. Wells and travel in the circles of his fans, and she is convinced to begin working in a furniture shop herself in the hopes that she might meet Wells . Freddy is not very practical, and he and Eliza must take classes in bookkeeping to make their business a success. They do reach success, and they live a fairly comfortable life.

Most times a story starts with a dark and stormy night, there's horror coming. Not the case here: with Pygmalion, the dark and stormy night ushers in linguistic hijinks and class commentary. Away we go. On a--yep--dark and stormy night in London's Covent Garden market, a crowd of people gathers in front of the church to wait out the rain. Among them are two ladies , Freddy, their son/brother, a flower girl , a gentleman , and The Note Taker . Henry Higgins is called The Note Taker here because he's lurking in the corner like a creep--or a cop--and scribbling down notes. A commotion starts after Eliza mistakes Higgins for a policeman starts talking about the fact that she's innocent. Higgins steps forward and reveals himself to be a gifted linguist--he's not interested in innocence or guilt, just language. He and Pickering, another gifted linguist who just so happens to be in town to see Higgins, introduce themselves. Higgins tells Pickering he could turn Eliza into a duchess in six months. The two give Eliza some money, and she takes a cab home.The next day, Higgins and Pickering are sitting in Higgins's laboratory when Eliza comes in and demands speech lessons. Pickering bets Higgins he can't turn Eliza into someone who speaks English like a duchess; Higgins takes the bet. Mrs. Pearce, Higgins's housekeeper, is a bit disturbed, but she can't do anything. Then Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, comes in and demands some cash in exchange for, well, the right to teach his daughter. He's a smooth talker and he's soon got the money, but his exit is interrupted by the appearance of Eliza, now clean . Everyone gapes in awe, Doolittle leaves, and Higgins and Pickering decide they've got a lot of work to do. A couple months pass. Higgins visits his mother and asks for her help. Mrs. Higgins is having a party, and he wants to bring Eliza along to it to see if she can handle herself like a lady in public. Mrs. Higgins objects, but Eliza comes in anyway. Her speech is flawless, but her grammar is...not. When she deviates from the script, she shocks and/or amuses those in attendance: the Eynsford Hills, Colonel Pickering, and Higgins. Higgins gives Eliza the signal to leave and, after the party's over, Mrs. Higgins warns him and Pickering about the possible dangers of their little experiment and of treating a woman like a weird language robot. They, of course, don't listen.A few more months pass. Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza return from a night of partying. Higgins, it seems, has won the bet, and he and Pickering are so busy discussing the evening that they forget to even congratulate Eliza. When Higgins is about to head off to bed, Eliza gets angry and throws his slippers at him. The two argue for a while--it seems Eliza's worried about her future--until Eliza annoys Higgins so much that he nearly hits her. She smiles, delighted to have made him so angry. The next morning, Higgins shows up at his mother's house in a fury. Eliza is missing, and he can't do anything without her. Mrs. Higgins tells him to act his age, but their conversation is interrupted by the appearance of Doolittle, who's come into a lot of money since the last time we saw him and is getting married to a fancy new wife. Mrs. Higgins says Doolittle can take care of Eliza now that he has money. Higgins objects. Eliza comes down--turns out she was upstairs the whole time--and proceeds to ignore Higgins. When everybody leaves, Higgins and Eliza get into another argument. She still doesn't know what to do with herself. Higgins suggests she get married, maybe even to Pickering. Eliza says no way, and threatens to marry Freddy, or maybe even go into competition with him as a speech teacher. Higgins nearly strangles her, only to realize that her anger has now made her his equal. Eliza says goodbye for what she says is the last time, but Higgins is sure she'll be back.

Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden. Professor Higgins is a scientist of phonetics, and Colonel Pickering is a linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that he can, with his knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, in a matter of months, he will be able to transform the cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. The next morning, the girl appears at his laboratory on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, offering to pay a shilling, so that she may speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. Higgins makes merciless fun of her, but is seduced by the idea of working his magic on her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover the costs of the experiment if Higgins can pass Eliza off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. The challenge is taken, and Higgins starts by having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give her new clothes. Then Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle comes to demand the return of his daughter, though his real intention is to hit Higgins up for some money. The professor, amused by Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five pounds. On his way out, the dustman fails to recognize the now clean, pretty flower girl as his daughter. For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Two trials for Eliza follow. The first occurs at Higgins' mother's home, where Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills, a trio of mother, daughter, and son. The son Freddy is very attracted to her, and further taken with what he thinks is her affected "small talk" when she slips into cockney. Mrs. Higgins worries that the experiment will lead to problems once it is ended, but Higgins and Pickering are too absorbed in their game to take heed. A second trial, which takes place some months later at an ambassador's party , is a resounding success. The wager is definitely won, but Higgins and Pickering are now bored with the project, which causes Eliza to be hurt. She throws Higgins' slippers at him in a rage because she does not know what is to become of her, thereby bewildering him. He suggests she marry somebody. She returns him the hired jewelry, and he accuses her of ingratitude. The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother, in a panic because Eliza has run away. On his tail is Eliza's father, now unhappily rich from the trust of a deceased millionaire who took to heart Higgins' recommendation that Doolittle was England's "most original moralist." Mrs. Higgins, who has been hiding Eliza upstairs all along, chides the two of them for playing with the girl's affections. When she enters, Eliza thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady, but threatens Higgins that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. The outraged Higgins cannot help but start to admire her. As Eliza leaves for her father's wedding, Higgins shouts out a few errands for her to run, assuming that she will return to him at Wimpole Street. Eliza, who has a lovelorn sweetheart in Freddy, and the wherewithal to pass as a duchess, never makes it clear whether she will or not.