4 Listen and read the extract from Act II of Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion". Use the wordlist below for help. Match the following sentences with the sentences with similar meanings from the play. (The sentences from the play are underlined)
Model: a) She is a very simple girl.— She's quite a common girl, sir. (1
b) Take her to the bathroom.
c) What will happen to her when you've finished your teaching?
d) What will she do with money?
e) Well, it'll be unfair if you charge me for English lessons as much as you would charge for French, because I already speak English.
f) Tell your parents that they should look well after you.
g) I'll say you are the best teacher in the world if you fulfil your promise.
h) I can live well without my parents.
i) Be quiet!
j) My parents told me that I was grown up enough to work and earn money for myself and sent me away from home, к) I don't want to have a madman as a teacher. 1) Don't argue! m) Go away!
n) Nobody has seen me drink alcohol.
o) The problem is to teach her to use correct grammar.
p) Please, don't forget what we are talking about.
q) I took notes about this girl's accent yesterday evening.
r) I think we can invite her upstairs.
s) Then why is everybody worrying so much?
PYGMALION by George Bernard Shaw (Extract from Act II
The next day at 11 a.m. Higgins's laboratory in Wimpole Street Pickering is seated at the table. Higgins is standing near him. He is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and
other people, including their feelings. He is so entirely frank and void of malice that he remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.1
MRS PEARCE: [Hesitating] 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. CD
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. Г2
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.
HIGGINS: Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. ГЗ) She's no use. [To the girl] Be off with you: (4) I don't want you.
THE FLOWER GIRL: Don't you be so saucy. You ain't2 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't3 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-oo4. Now you know, don't you? I'm come5 to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.
HIGGINS: Well!!! [Recovering his breath with a gaspM What do you expect me to say to you?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Well, if you was7 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! 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 stead8 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!
HIGGINS: What's your name?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Liza Doolittle.
HIGGINS: 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 fpr teaching me my own language as ypu would for French; (5) so I won't give more than a shilling9. Take it or leave it.10 HIGGINS: [Walking up and down the room.] 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 millionaire11. PICKERING: How so?
HIGGINS: Figure it out.12 A millionaire has about ?150 a day. She earns about half-a-crown.
LIZA: [Haughtily] Who told you I only — HIGGINS: [Continuing] She offers me two-fifth: of her day's income for a lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income for a day would be somewhere about ?60. It's handsome.13 By George14, 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 vour tongue. (6) LIZA: [Weeping] But I ain't15 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 was16 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 give17 it to me, not to you.
PICKERING: [Laughing] He did. I think it must be regarded as her property,
Mrs Pearce. MRS PEARCE: 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. (7) 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 dirty19 —
LIZA: [Protesting extremely] Ah-ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo!!! I ain't20 dirty: I washed my face and hands afore I come, I did.
HIGGINS: [Carried away.21] 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.22 We'll start today: now! This moment! Take her away and clean her, Mrs Pearce. Monkey Brand23, 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 Whiteley24or 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 Grove25 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! Re reasonable. MRS PEARCE: [Resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr Higgins: really you must. You can't walk over everybody like this. HIGGINS: [With professional exquisiteness of modulation.26] 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.
(Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.) 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!27
HIGGINS: There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married indeed!28 Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn out drudge of fifty29 a year after she's married. LIZA: Who'd marry me?
HIGGINS: [Suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low tones.] By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I've done with you.30 MRS PEARCE: Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her.
LIZA: [Rising] I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is.31 I don't want np bfrlmies teaching me. (8
HIGGINS: 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: 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. (9
LIZA: I ain't got no parents. They told me I was big enough to earn my own living and turned me out. (10
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. flD And I'm a good girl, I am.
HIGGINS: Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? (12) The girl doesn't belong to anybody — is no use to anybody but me.
MRS PEARCE: But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid anything?
HIGGINS: Oh, pay her whatever is necessary. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with money? (13) She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if you give her money.
LIZA: [Turning on him] It's a lie: nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me. (14
PICKERING: 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] You see the difficulty?
PICKERING: Eh? What difficulty?
HIGGINS: To get her to talk grammar. (15) The 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. (16) Mr Higgins. I want to know on what terms the girl is to be here. And what is to become of her when you've finished your teaching? (171 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 ov/n 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.
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.
LIZA: 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 orders: that's what she wants. Eliza, you are to live here for the next six months and, 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. 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 bathroom. (18
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. (19) 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.321 always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don't owe him nothing. [Mrs Pearce shuts the door.
Model: a) She is a very simple girl.— She's quite a common girl, sir. (1
b) Take her to the bathroom.
c) What will happen to her when you've finished your teaching?
d) What will she do with money?
e) Well, it'll be unfair if you charge me for English lessons as much as you would charge for French, because I already speak English.
f) Tell your parents that they should look well after you.
g) I'll say you are the best teacher in the world if you fulfil your promise.
h) I can live well without my parents.
i) Be quiet!
j) My parents told me that I was grown up enough to work and earn money for myself and sent me away from home, к) I don't want to have a madman as a teacher. 1) Don't argue! m) Go away!
n) Nobody has seen me drink alcohol.
o) The problem is to teach her to use correct grammar.
p) Please, don't forget what we are talking about.
q) I took notes about this girl's accent yesterday evening.
r) I think we can invite her upstairs.
s) Then why is everybody worrying so much?
PYGMALION by George Bernard Shaw (Extract from Act II
The next day at 11 a.m. Higgins's laboratory in Wimpole Street Pickering is seated at the table. Higgins is standing near him. He is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and
other people, including their feelings. He is so entirely frank and void of malice that he remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.1
MRS PEARCE: [Hesitating] 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. CD
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. Г2
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.
HIGGINS: Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. ГЗ) She's no use. [To the girl] Be off with you: (4) I don't want you.
THE FLOWER GIRL: Don't you be so saucy. You ain't2 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't3 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-oo4. Now you know, don't you? I'm come5 to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.
HIGGINS: Well!!! [Recovering his breath with a gaspM What do you expect me to say to you?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Well, if you was7 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! 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 stead8 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!
HIGGINS: What's your name?
THE FLOWER GIRL: Liza Doolittle.
HIGGINS: 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 fpr teaching me my own language as ypu would for French; (5) so I won't give more than a shilling9. Take it or leave it.10 HIGGINS: [Walking up and down the room.] 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 millionaire11. PICKERING: How so?
HIGGINS: Figure it out.12 A millionaire has about ?150 a day. She earns about half-a-crown.
LIZA: [Haughtily] Who told you I only — HIGGINS: [Continuing] She offers me two-fifth: of her day's income for a lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income for a day would be somewhere about ?60. It's handsome.13 By George14, 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 vour tongue. (6) LIZA: [Weeping] But I ain't15 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 was16 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 give17 it to me, not to you.
PICKERING: [Laughing] He did. I think it must be regarded as her property,
Mrs Pearce. MRS PEARCE: 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. (7) 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 dirty19 —
LIZA: [Protesting extremely] Ah-ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo!!! I ain't20 dirty: I washed my face and hands afore I come, I did.
HIGGINS: [Carried away.21] 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.22 We'll start today: now! This moment! Take her away and clean her, Mrs Pearce. Monkey Brand23, 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 Whiteley24or 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 Grove25 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! Re reasonable. MRS PEARCE: [Resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr Higgins: really you must. You can't walk over everybody like this. HIGGINS: [With professional exquisiteness of modulation.26] 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.
(Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.) 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!27
HIGGINS: There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married indeed!28 Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn out drudge of fifty29 a year after she's married. LIZA: Who'd marry me?
HIGGINS: [Suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low tones.] By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I've done with you.30 MRS PEARCE: Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her.
LIZA: [Rising] I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is.31 I don't want np bfrlmies teaching me. (8
HIGGINS: 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: 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. (9
LIZA: I ain't got no parents. They told me I was big enough to earn my own living and turned me out. (10
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. flD And I'm a good girl, I am.
HIGGINS: Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? (12) The girl doesn't belong to anybody — is no use to anybody but me.
MRS PEARCE: But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid anything?
HIGGINS: Oh, pay her whatever is necessary. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with money? (13) She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if you give her money.
LIZA: [Turning on him] It's a lie: nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me. (14
PICKERING: 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] You see the difficulty?
PICKERING: Eh? What difficulty?
HIGGINS: To get her to talk grammar. (15) The 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. (16) Mr Higgins. I want to know on what terms the girl is to be here. And what is to become of her when you've finished your teaching? (171 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 ov/n 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.
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.
LIZA: 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 orders: that's what she wants. Eliza, you are to live here for the next six months and, 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. 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 bathroom. (18
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. (19) 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.321 always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don't owe him nothing. [Mrs Pearce shuts the door.