Original subtitles

I'm getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be doing all this time? He's been gone twenty minutes.

- Well, haven't you got a cab? - There's not one to be had for love or money. - You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and dont come back until you have found a cab. - I shall simply get soaked for nothing. - And what about us? You selfish pig— - Oh, very well: I'll go, I'll go.

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

- Sorry. - There's menners f' yer! Ta-oo branches o voylets trod into the mad.

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

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 athaht pyin.

- Will ye-oo py me f'them? - Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea! - Please allow me, Clara.

- Have you any pennies? - No. I've nothing smaller than sixpence. - I can give you change for a tanner, kind lady.

Would you give it to me... Now.

- This is for your flowers. - Ah... Thank you kindly, lady. - Make her give you the change. These things are only a penny a bunch. - Do hold your tongue, Clara.

- You may keep the change. - Thank you, lady. - Now tell me how you know that young gentleman's name.

- I didnt. - I heard you call him by it. Dont try to deceive me.

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.

- Sixpence thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy that. - Oh, Clara...

- Phew! - Oh sir, is there any sign of its stopping?

- I'm afraid not. It started worse than ever about two minutes ago. - Oh dear!

If it's worse, it's a sign it's nearly over. So cheer up, Captain; and buy a flower off a poor girl.

- I'm sorry. I havnt any change. - I can give you change, Captain.

- For a sovereign? Ive nothing less. - Oh, go on, do buy a flower off me, Captain. I can change half-a-crown.

- Here, take this for tuppence. - Now dont be troublesome: theres a good girl.

- Heres three hapence, if thats any use to you. - Thank you, sir.

Hear... hear. You be careful: give him a flower for it.

Theres a bloke back here taking down every blessed word youre saying.

I aint done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman.

- Ive a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb. - What's the row? - I'm a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower.

Oh, sir, sir, please dont let him charge me. You dunno what it means to me. Theyll take away me character and drive me on the streets for speaking to gentlemen.

There, there, there, there! whos hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for?

It's aw rawt: e's a gentleman: look at his ba-oots. She thought you is a copper's nark, sir.

- Whats a copper's nark? - What, well, it's a...

- Well, it's a copper's nark, innit? What else would you call it? It's a sort of the informer! - I swear on me Bible, oh, sir, I never said anything to you... - Shut up!

Shut up. Do I look like a policeman?

Then what did you take down me words for?

How do I know whether you took me down right?

Would you shew me what youve wrote about me.

- Whats that? That aint proper writing. I cant read that. - I can.

“Cheer ap, Keptin; n' baw ya flahr orf a pore gel.”

Ah! It's because I called him Captain.

- Oh, sir, I meant no harm. Please, dont let him lay a charge agen me for a word like that. - Charge! I make no charge.

Really, sir, if you are a detective, you need not begin protecting me against molestation by young women unless I ask.

- Anyone could see the girl meant no harm. THE BYSTANDERS GENERALLY: - Course they could, etc., etc., etc.

- He aint a tec. He's a blooming busybody. I tell you, look at his bo-oots. - And how are all your people down at Selsey?

- How would you know my people come from Selsey? - Never you mind. They did.

How do you come to be up so far east? You were born in Lisson Grove.

Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson Grove?

It wasnt fit for a pig to live in;

and I had to pay four-and-six a week. - Live where you like; but stop that noise.

4800: 06: 39,965 -> 00: 06: 44,165 ¡Comer comer! no puedo tocar usted: tiene derecho para vivir donde quieras.

49 00: 06: 44,412 -> 00: 06: 49,512 ¡Él tiene! Park Lane, por ejemplo. Me gustaría entrar en la vivienda Pregunta contigo, lo haría.

cincuenta 00: 06: 49,836 -> 00: 06: 54,036 - Soy una buena chica, lo soy. - ¿De donde vengo? Hoxton

51 00: 06: 54,794 -> 00: 07: 00,894 Bueno, ¿quién dijo que no? Bly me! lo sabes todo, lo sabes. - No hay ninguna llamada para entrometerse conmigo, no lo es. Of course he aint. Dont you stand it from him. Now, now, look here:

what cause have you got to meddle with people what never offered to meddle with you?

- Let him say what he likes. I dont want to have no truck with him. - You take us for dirt under your feet, dont you?

- Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman! - Yeah, yeah.

Tell him, tell him where he come from if you want to go fortune-telling.

Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India.

Quite right.

May I ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall?

I've thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.

He's no gentleman, he's not, to interfere with a poor girl.

What on earth is Freddy doing?

- I shall get pneumownia if I stay in this draught any longer. - Earlscourt.

- Will you please keep your impertinent remarks to yourself. - Did I say that out loud? I didnt mean to. I beg your pardon. Your mother's Epsom, unmistakeably.

- How very curious! I was brought up in Largelady Park, near Epsom. - Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! What a devil of a name! Excuse me.

- You want a cab, do you? - Dont dare speak to me. - Oh please, please, Clara.

We should be so grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab.

- I told you he was a plainclothes copper. - That aint a police whistle: thats a sporting whistle.

He's no right to take away me character.

Me character is the same to me as any lady's.

- I dont know whether youve noticed it; but the rain stopped about two minutes ago. - So it has.

- Why didnt you tell us before? us wasting our time listening to your silliness! - I know where you come from.

- Anwell Asylum. Go back there. - Hanwell. - Oh, thenk you, teacher. Haw!

Frightening people like that! How would he like it hisself?

- It's quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor bus. Come. - But the cab—

Oh, how tiresome!

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

- How do you do it, if I may ask? - Simply phonetics. The science of speech. Thats 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.

Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward!

- Is there a living in that? - Oh yes. Quite a fat one.

This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with £80 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— - Let him mind his own business— - Woman: cease this detestable boohooing instantly; or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship.

Ive a right to be here if I like, same as you.

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 dont sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

- Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo! - Heavens! what a sound!

- Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo! - Garn!

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 six months I could pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party.

I agree even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English.

- What's that you say? - Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf,

you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language: I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba.

- Can you believe that? - Yes, of course I can.

- I am myself a student of Indian dialects. - Are you really? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanscrit?

- I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you? - Henry Higgins, the author of Higgins's Universal Alphabet.

- I came from India to meet you. - I was going to India to meet you.

- Where do you live? - 27A Wimpole Street. Come and see me tomorrow. - I'm at the Carlton.

- Come with me now and lets have a jaw over some supper. - Right you are.

Do buy a flower, kind sir.

- I'm short for me lodging. - I'm sorry. I havnt any change. Really. - Liar. You said you could change half-a-crown.

Aaah, you ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought. Here, take the whole blooming basket for sixpence.

A reminder.

Aaah! ... Aaah-ow-ooh! ... Aaaaaah-ow-ooh! ... Aaaaaaaaaaaah-ow-ooh!!!

Got one at last.

Hallo!

- Where are the two ladies that were here? - They walked to the bus when the rain stopped.

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

Never mind, young man. I'm going home in a taxi.

- Well, well, girl. - Eightpence aint no object to me, Charlie.

Angel Court, Drury Lane, next to Meiklejohn's oil shop, and lets see how fast you can make her hop it.

Why, did you get...

Well, I'm dashed!

- Well, I think thats the whole show. - It's really amazing. I...

- I havnt taken half of it in, you know. - Would you like to go over any of it again? - No, thanks; not now. I'm quite done up for this morning. - Tired of listening to sounds? - Yes. It's a fearful strain.

Look, I rather fancied myself because I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but your - a hundred and thirty beat me.

- I could not hear a bit of difference between most of them. - Oh, that comes with practice. You hear no difference at first; but you keep on listening, and presently you find theyre all as different as A from B.

- What is it? - A young woman asks to see you, sir. - A young woman! What does she want?

Well, sir, she says youll be very glad to see her when you know what she's come about.

But she's quite a common girl, sir. Very common indeed.

Why, I would've sent her away, only I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines.

I hope Ive not done wrong;

but really you do see such queer people sometimes—

youll excuse me, sir, I'm sure. - Oh, thats all right, Mrs. Pearce. Has she an interesting accent?

Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I dont know how you can take an interest in it.

- Lets have her up. Shew her up, Mrs. Pearce. - Very well, sir. It's for you to say.

This is rather a bit of luck. I'll shew you how I make records.

We'll set her talking; I'll take it down 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.

This is the young woman, sir.

Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use:

Ive got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo; and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. Be off with you: I dont want you.

Dont you be so saucy. You aint heard what I come for yet.

Did you tell him I come in a taxi?

Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?

Oh, we are proud! He aint above giving lessons, not him:

I heard him say so.

Well, I aint come here to ask for any compliment;

and if me money's not good enough I can go elsewhere. - Good enough for what?

Good enough for ye-oo.

Now you know, dont you?

I'm come to have lessons, I am. Pay for em ta-oo: make no mistake.

Well!!!... What do you expect me to say to you?

Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down.

Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down, or shall we throw her out of the window?

- Ah-ah-oh-ow-ow-ow-oo! I wont be called a baggage when Ive offered to pay like a lady. - Oh! What is it you want?

I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.

But they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel.

He said he could teach me.

Well, here I am—ready to pay—

not asking any favor and he—

treats me as if I was dirt.

How can you be such a foolish ignorant girl as to think you could afford to pay Mr. Higgins?

Why shouldnt I? I know what lessons cost same as you; and I'm ready to pay.

- How much? - Now youre talking!

I thought youd come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night.

- Youd had a drop in, hadnt you? - Sit down.

- Oh, if youre going to make a compliment of it— - Sit down. - Sit down, girl. Do as youre told.

Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo!

Wont you sit down?

Dont mind if I do.

- Whats your name? - Eliza Doolittle.

- Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess, They went to the woods to get a birds nes’: - They found a nest with four eggs in it: - They took one apiece, and left three in it.

- Oh, dont be silly. - You mustnt speak to the gentleman like that. - Well, why wont he speak sensible to me? - Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?

Oh, I know whats right.

A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteenpence an hour from a real French gentleman.

Now, vou wouldn't have the face to ask the same for teaching me my own language as you would for French;

so I wont give more than a shilling. Take it or leave it.

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. - How so? - Work it out.

A millionaire has about £150 a day. She earns about half-a-crown.

- Who told you I only— - She offers me two-fifths of her day's income for a lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income would be somewhere about £60.

It's handsome. By George, it's enormous! it's the biggest offer I ever had.

Sixty pounds! What are you talking about? I never offered you sixty pounds.

- Where would I get sixty pounds? - Hold your tongue.

- But I aint got sixty pounds. - Dont cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going to touch your money.

Somebody is going to touch you, with a broomstick, if you dont stop snivelling. Sit down.

Ah-ah-ah-ow-oo-o! One would think you was me father.

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

- Whats that for? - To wipe your eyes.

To wipe any part of your face that feels moist. Remember: thats your handkerchief; and thats your sleeve.

Dont mistake the one for the other if you wish to become a lady in a shop.

It's no use talking to her like that, Mr. Higgins: she doesnt understand you. Beside, you've got it quite wrong:

she doesnt do it that way at all. - Here! You give me that handkerchief.

- He gev it to me, not to you. - He did. I think it must be regarded as her property, Mrs Pearce.

Serve you right, Mr. Higgins.

Higgins: I'm interested.

What about the ambassador's garden party?

I'll say youre the greatest teacher alive if you could make that good.

And I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment that you cant do it. And I'll pay for the lessons.

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

It's almost irresistible. Shes so deliciously low— so horribly dirty—

Ah-ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo!!! I aint dirty:

I washed me face and hands afore I come, I did. - Well, youre certainly not going to turn her head with flattery, Higgins.

Oh, dont say that, sir:

theres 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 wont encourage him to do anything foolish. - What is life but a series of inspired follies?

The difficulty is to find them to do.

Never lose a chance: it doesnt come every day.

I shall make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe. - Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo!

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 to-day: now! this moment! Take her away and clean her, Mrs. Pearce.

Monkey Brand, if it wont come off any other way.

Is there a good fire in the kitchen?

- Yes; but— - Take all her clothes off and burn them. Ring up Whiteley or somebody for new ones. Wrap her up in brown paper til they come.

Youre no gentleman, youre not, to talk of such things.

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

We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young woman. Youve got to learn to behave like a duchess. Take her away, Mrs. Pearce.

If she gives you any trouble, wallop her. - No! I'll call the police, I will.

- But Ive no place to put her. - Put her in the dustbin.

- Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo! - Come, Higgins! be reasonable.

You must be reasonable, Mr Higgins: really you must. You cant walk over everybody like this.

I— walk over everybody!

My dear Mrs Pearce, my dear Pickering, I never had the slightest intention of walking over anybody.

All I propose is that we should be kind to this poor girl.

We must help her to prepare and to 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.

- Well, did you ever hear anything like that, sir? - Never, Mrs Pearce: never.

Whats the matter?

Well, the matter is, that you can't take a girl up like that as if you were picking up a pebble on the beach.

- Why not? - Why not!

But you dont know anything about her. What about her parents?

She might be married. - Huh, Garn! - There! As the girl very properly says, Garn!

Married indeed! Dont you know that a woman of that class looks a worn out drudge of fifty a year after shes married.

- Whood marry me?

- By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before Ive done with you. - Nonsense, sir. You mustnt talk to her like that.

I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is. I dont want no balmies teaching me.

Oh, indeed! Mad, am I? Very well, Mrs Pearce: you neednt order the new clothes. Throw her out.

- Nah-ow. You got no right to touch me. - Now you know what comes of being saucy.

- That's way, please. - I didnt want no clothes.

I wouldn't have taken them.

- I can buy me own clothes. - Youre 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. - Stop, Mr Higgins.

I wont allow it. It's you that's being wicked.

Go home to your parents, girl; and tell them to take better care of you. - I aint got no parents.

- They told me I was big enough to earn me own living and turned me out. - What? Wheres your mother?

I aint got no mother. Her that turned me out was me sixth stepmother.

But I done without them.

And I'm a good girl, I am. - Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about?

The girl doesnt belong to anybody— is no use to anybody but me.

You can adopt her, Mrs Pearce: I'm sure a daughter would be a great amusement to you. Now dont make any more fuss.

Take her downstairs; and— - But whats to become of her?

Is she to be paid anything? Do be sensible, sir. - Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the housekeeping book.

What on earth will she want with money? She'll only drink if you give her money.

It's a lie: nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me.

Oh, sir: youre a gentleman: dont let him speak to me like that.

Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?

Oh no, I dont think so. Not any feelings that we need bother about. Have you, Eliza?

I got me feelings same as anyone else.

- You see the difficulty? - Eh? What difficulty? - To get her to talk grammar.

- Mere pronunciation is easy enough. - But I dont want to talk grammar.

- I want to talk like a lady in a shop. - Will you please keep to the point, Mr Higgins.

Whats to become of the girl when youve finished your teaching?

Whats to become of her if I leave her in the gutter? Answer me that, Mrs. Pearce.

Thats her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins.

Well, when Ive finished with her, we can throw her back into the gutter; and then it will be her own business again; so thats all right.

Oh, youve no feeling heart in you; you dont care for nothing but yourself.

Here! Ive had enough of this. I'm going. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought.

Have some chocolates, Eliza.

How do I know what might be in them?

- Ive heard of girls being drugged by the like of you. - Pledge of good faith, Eliza.

- I eat one half: you eat the other. - No, you...

You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day. You shall live on them. Eh?

I wouldn't have ate it, only I'm too ladylike to take it out of me mouth.

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

- Well, what if I did? Ive as good a right to take a taxi as anyone else. - You have indeed, 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. Think of that, Eliza.

Mr Higgins: youre tempting the girl. She should think of the future.

Nonsense, Eliza. There is time enough to think of the future when you have no future to think of. No, Eliza: think of chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds.

No: I dont want no gold and no diamonds.

- I'm a good girl, I am. - You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs Pearce.

And you'll 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—

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 shes doing.

How can she? Shes incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

Very clever; but not to the present point.

Miss Doolittle—

- Ah-ah-ow-oo! - There! Thats 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: thats enough for her. 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 youre good and do whatever youre told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis.

If youre 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 youre 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-six pence to start life with as a lady in a shop.

If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful wicked girl; and the angels will weep for you.

Now are you satisfied, Pickering? Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs Pearce?

Well, I think perhaps youd better let me speak to the girl properly in private.

Of course I know you dont 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. - Thats all right, Mrs Pearce. Thank you. Bundle her off to the bath-room.

Youre a great bully, you are. I wont stay here if I dont like. I wont let nobody wallop me.

I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didnt.

- And I never been in trouble with the police, not me. I'm a good girl— - Dont answer back, girl.

- You dont understand the gentleman. - Well, what I say is right. I wont go near the King, not if I'm going to have me head cut off.

If I'd known what I was letting meself 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 have me own feelings the same as anyone else—

Excuse the straight question, Higgins, but—

Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?

Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?

- Yes: very frequently. - Well, I havnt.

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 youre driving at another.

So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so. - 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.

What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. You see, she'll be a pupil;

and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred.

Ive 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—

- Well, is it all right, Mrs Pearce? - I just wish to trouble you with a word, if I may, Mr Higgins. - Certainly. Come in.

Dont burn that, Mrs Pearce. I'll keep it as a curiosity.

What do you wish to say to me?

Oh! Am I in the way?

Not at all, sir. Mr Higgins: will you please be very particular what you say before the girl?

- Of course. I'm always particular about what I say. Why do you say this to me? - No, sir: youre not at all particular

when youve mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient.

Now it doesnt matter before me: I'm used to it.

But you really must not swear before the girl. - Swear! I never swear. I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?

Thats what I mean, sir. You swear a great deal too much.

Now, I dont mind your damning and blasting, but there is a certain word I must ask you not to use.

The girl used it herself when she began to enjoy the bath.

It begins with the same letter as bath.

Now, she knows no better: she learnt it at her mother's knee.

But she must not hear it from your lips. - I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it, Mrs Pearce.

Except perhaps in moments of extreme and justifiable excitement.

Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots,

to the butter, and to the brown bread. - Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a poet.

- Well, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it. - Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?

No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with this girl as to her personal cleanliness.

Certainly. Quite right. Most important.

- I mean not to be slovenly in her dress or untidy in leaving things about. - Just so. I was about to draw your attention to that.

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 it is of money.

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 that you do, sir.

And if you would be so good as not to eat everything off the same plate, it would set a better example to the girl.

You know you nearly choked yourself on a fishbone in the jam only last week.

I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but surely I dont do them habitually. By the way: my dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.

- No doubt it does, sir. But if you will wipe your fingers— - Oh very well, very well: I'll wipe them in my hair in future.

- I hope youre not offended, Mr. Higgins. - Not at all, not at all.

Youre quite right. I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?

No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you brought back from abroad? I really cant put her back into her old things.

Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?

Thank you, sir. Thats all.

You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary ideas about me.

Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man.

Ive 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 cant account for it.

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

Theres a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, asks to see you. He says you have his daughter here.

- Phew! I say! - Send the blackguard up. - Very well, sir.

- But he may not be a blackguard, Higgins. - Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard. - Whether he is or not, I think we'll have some trouble with him. - I think not.

If theres any trouble to be had he shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get something interesting from him. - About the girl? - No. I mean his dialect. - Oh!

Doolittle, sir.

Professor Iggins?

Here. Good morning. Sit down.

Good morning, Governor.

l come about a very serious matter, Governor.

Born in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think.

What do you want, Doolittle?

- I want my daughter: thats what I want. See? - Of course you do.

Youre her father, arnt you? You dont 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.

- What! - Take her away. You dont suppose I'm going to keep your daughter for you, do you?

Now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fairity to take advantage of a man like this?

The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in?

- How dare you come here and try to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose. - No, Governor. - Of course you did. How else could you possibly know that she is here?

- Don't take a man up like that, Governor. - The police shall take you up.

This is a plant—a plot to extort money from me by threats.

- I shall telephone for the police. - Have I asked you for a brass farthing?

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

- What else did you come for? - Well, I'll tell you,if youll 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.

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! thats the Welsh strain in him. It also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.

Oh, please, Higgins: I'm west country myself.

- Now, how did you know the girl was here if you didnt send her? - There, it was like this, Governor.

The girl took a boy in the taxi to give him a jaunt.

Son of her landlady, he is. Well, she sent him back for her luggage when she heard you was willing for her to stop here.

- I met the lad at the comer of Long Acre and Endell Street. - How much luggage?

Musical instrument. A few pictures, a trifle of jewlery, and a bird-cage.

She said she didnt want no clothes.

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

So you came to save her from worse than death, is that this?

Yes! Thats right.

Why did you bring her luggage if you intended to take her away?

- Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now? - Youre going to take her away, double quick. - No, dont say that, Governor.

I'm not the man to stand in my girl's light.

- Heres a career opening for her, as you might say. - Mrs Pearce: this is Eliza's father.

He has come to take her away. Give her to him. - That should be misunderstanding. Listen to me. - But he cant take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he?

You told me to burn her clothes. - Thats right.

I cant carry her through the streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.

- 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. - Wheres the clothes she come in? Did I burn them or did your missus here?

I am the housekeeper, if you please.

I've sent for some clothes for your girl. When they come you can take her away. You can wait in the kitchen. This way, please.

Listen, Governor.

- You and me is men of the world, aint we? - Oh! Men of the world, are we? Youd better go, Mrs. Pearce.

I think so, indeed, sir.

- The floor is yours, Mr Doolittle. - I thank you, Governor.

Well, the truth is, Governor, Ive sort of taken a fancy to you;

and if you want the girl, I'm not as 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.

But as my daughter she ain't worth her keep; so I tell you straight.

All I want is me rights as a father;

and youre the last man alive to expect me to give her up for nothing;

I can see youre one of the straight sort. I mean, whats a five-pound note to you? And whats Eliza to me?

I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins's intentions are entirely honorable. - Of course they are, Governor.

If I thought they wasn't, I'd ask fifty. - Do you mean to say, that you would sell your daughter for £50? - Not in a general way I wouldnt;

but to oblige a gentleman like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you. - Have you no morals, man? - Cant 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 make a bit out of this, why not me too?

I dont know what to do, Pickering.

There can be no doubt that as a question of morals it's a positive crime to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a certain rough justice in his claim.

Thats right, Governor. Thats what I say. A father's heart, as it were.

Yes, yes, I know how you feel; but it hardly seems right—

Dont say that, Governor. Dont look at it that way.

What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I?

I'm one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man.

It means that he's up against middle class morality all the time.

Well, I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him;

and I drink a lot more. Therefore, I put it to you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me.

I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving;

and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth.

Would 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?

I mean: is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

Pickering: if we were to take this chap in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

- What do you say to that, Doolittle? - Not me, Governor, thank you kindly.

Ive heard all the preachers and 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.

Now, undeserving poverty is my line.

- I suppose we must give him a fiver. - He'll anyway make a bad use of it, I'm afraid.

Not me, Governor, so help me I wont.

Ah, don't you be afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it.

There wont be a penny of it left by Monday: I'll have to go back to work same as if I'd never had it.

Just one last spree for meself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves, employment to others,

and satisfaction to you to know that your money ain't been throwed away.

You couldnt spend it better. - This is irresistible. Lets give him ten. - No, don't, no, no, don't, no, no,

She wouldnt have the heart to spend ten; probably I shouldnt neither. Ten pounds is a lot of money:

it makes a man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to happiness.

- No, just give me what I ask, and not a penny more, and not a penny less. - Why dont you marry that missus of yours?

Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I'm willing. I am the one that suffers by it. Ive got no hold on her.

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!

And you take my advice, Governor:

you marry Eliza while she's young and dont know no better. If you dont youll be sorry for it after.

If you do, she'll be sorry for it after; but better her than you, because youre a man,

she's only a woman and dont know how to be happy anyhow.

Pickering: if we listen to this chap another minute, we shall have no convictions left.

- Five pounds I think you said. - That's right, Governor. - Youre sure you wont take ten?

- Eh, not now, Governor. Some other time. - Here you are. - Thank you, Governor.

Good morning, gentlemen.

Oh, beg pardon, miss.

Garn! Dont you know your own daughter?

- Bly me! it's Eliza! - This! - By Jove!

Dont I look silly?

- Silly? - Now, Mr. Higgins,

dont say anything to make the girl conceited about herself.

- Oh! Quite right, Mrs. Pearce. Yes : damned silly. - Please, sir. - I mean extremely silly.

I should look all right with me hat on. Here, what.

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

- I never thought she'd clean up as good looking as that. Shes a real credit to me, aint she? - I tell you, it's easy to clean up here.

Hot and cold water on tap there is, just as much as you like. And woolly towels, there is; and a towel horse so hot, it burns your fingers.

Soft brushes to scrub yourself with, and a wooden bowl of soap that smells like primroses.

Now I know why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat for them. Wish I could see what it is for the likes of me!

She aint accustomed to a lie so. But she'll soon pick up your free-and-easy ways.

I'm a good girl, I am;

and I wont pick up no free and easy ways. - Eliza: if you say again that youre a good girl, your father shall take you home.

Not him. You dont know me father. All he come here for was to touch you for some money to get drunk on.

Well, what else would I want money for? To put into the plate in church, I suppose.

Dont you give me none of your lip, my girl; and dont let me hear you giving this gentleman any of your lip,

or youll hear about it from me, you see? - Have you any further advice to give your daughter before you go, Mr Doolittle? Your blessing, for instance.

Not me, Governor: I aint 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, you do it yourself with a strap.

Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning, maam. Oh!

- You wont see him again in a hurry. - I dont want to, Eliza. Do you?

No, not me. I dont want never to see him again, I dont. He's a disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead of working at his trade.

What is his trade, Eliza?

Talking money out of other people's pockets into his own.

- Aint you going to call me Miss Doolittle any more? - Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Doolittle. It was a slip of the tongue.

I dont mind; only it sounded so genteel.

I should just like to take a taxi

down to the comer of Tottenham Court Road and get out

and tell it to wait there for me, just to put the girls in their place a bit.

I wouldnt speak to them, you know. - You better wait til we get you something really fashionable.

Oh, if I'm to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should like to have some.

Mrs Pearce tell me youre going to give me some to wear in bed at night different to what I wear in the daytime;

but it do seem a terrible waste of money when you could get something to shew.

Besides, I never could fancy changing into cold things on a winter's night.

- Now, Eliza. The things have come for you to try on. - Ah-ow-oo-ooh! Ah-ow-oo-ooh!

Oh, dont rash about like that, girl.

- Pickering: we have taken on a stiff job. - Higgins: we have.

- Say: a cup of tea. - A cup of tea. - A cup of tea, etc...

- Henry! It is my at-home day: you promised not to come. - Oh bother!

- Go home at once. - I know. I came here on purpose. - But you mustnt.

I'm serious, dear. You offend all my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you.

- Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people dont mind. - Oh-ho-ho! dont they?

Small talk indeed! What about your large talk?

- Really, dear, you mustnt stay. - I must. Ive a job for you. A phonetic job. - No use, dear. I cant get round your vowels.

- Well, this isn't a phonetic job. - You said it was. - Not your part of it. You see...

Ive picked up a girl.

- Does that mean that some girl has picked you up? - Not at all. I dont mean a love affair.

- What a pity! - Why?

Well, you never fall in love with anyone under forty-five.

When will you discover that there are some rather attractive young women about?

Oh, I cant be bothered with young women. My idea of a lovable woman is somebody as like you as possible. I shall never get into the way of really liking young women: some habits lie too deep to be changed.

Besides, theyre all idiots.

- Do you know what you would do if you really loved me, Henry? - Oh bother! What? Marry, I suppose. - No. Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your pockets.

Thats a good boy.

- Now... tell me about the girl. - She's coming to see you.

- I dont remember asking her. - You didnt. I asked her. If youd known her you wouldnt have asked her.

- Indeed! Why? - Well, it's like this. You see, She's a common flower girl.

I picked her off the kerbstone.

- And invited her to my at-home! - Oh, thatll be all right. Ive 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 that will be safe. - Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides!

perhaps about our outsides!

How could you be so silly, Henry? - Well, she must talk about something.

Oh, she'll be all right, mother: dont you fuss.

Pickering is in it with me. You see, Ive a sort of bet on that I'll pass her off as a duchess in six months.

I shall win my bet. She has a quick ear;

and she's easier to teach than my middle-class pupils because she's had to learn a complete new language.

She speaks English almost as you speak French.

- Well, that is satisfactory, at all events. - It is and it isnt.

What does that mean?

- You see, Ive got her pronunciation all right; but you have to consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces; and that's where— Oh, great Lord! - Mrs and Miss Eynsford Hill. - How do you do?

How d'you do?

My son Henry.

- Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins. - Delighted.

How do you do?

Ive seen you somewhere before.

I havent the ghost of a notion where; but I remember your voice. It doesnt matter. Youd better sit down.

I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustnt mind him.

- I didn't. - Not at all. - Oh, have I been rude? I didnt mean to be.

- Colonel Pickering. - How do you do, Mrs Higgins? - So glad youve come.

Do you know Mrs Eynsford Hill — Miss Eynsford Hill?

- Has, erm, has Henry told you what weve come for? - No, we were interrupted: damn it! - Henry, really!

- Are we in the way? - No!

No, you couldnt have come more fortunately: we want you to meet a friend of ours.

- Yes, by George! We could do with two or three people. Youll do as well as anybody else. - Mr Eynsford Hill.

Good Lord of Heaven! another of them.

- Ahdedo? - So good of you to come.

- Oh, Colonel Pickering. - Ahdedo?

- I, er, dont think you know my son, Professor Higgins. - Ahdedo? - I'll take my oath Ive seen you somewhere before.

- Where was it? - I don’t think so. - It dont matter, anyhow. You better sit down.

Well, here we all are!

What the devil are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?

Henry: you are the life and soul of the Royal Society's soirees; but youre really rather trying on more comonmonplace occasions.

Am I? Sorry.

- I suppose I am, you know. Ha, ha! etc... - I sympathize.

I havnt any small talk.

- If people would only be frank and say what they really think! - Lord forbid! - But why?

What they think they ought to think is bad enough Lord knows; but what they really think would upset whole show. Do you think it would be really agreeable if I were to say what I really think?

Is it so very cynical?

- Cynical! Who the dickens said it was cynical? I mean it wouldn't be decent. - Oh! I'm sure you dont mean that, Mr 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, but how many of us know even the meanings of these words?

What do you know of poetry? What do you know of science?

What does he know of art or science or anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of philosophy?

- Or of manners, Henry? - Miss Doolittle.

That she is, mother.

How do you do, Mrs Higgins? Mr Higgins told me I might come.

- Quite right: I'm very glad indeed to see you. - How do you do, Miss Doolittle? - Colonel Pickering, is it not?

I feel sure that we have met before, Miss Doolittle. I remember your eyes.

- How do you do? - My daughter Clara.

- How do you do? - How do you do? - Ive certainly had the pleasure. - My son Freddy.

How do you do?

By George, yes: it all comes back to me! Covent Garden!

- What a damnable thing! - Oh, Henry, Henry, really, no. No, don't sit on my desk: youll break it. - Oh, sorry.

Will it rain, do you think?

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.

Ha! ha! how awfully funny!

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

Killing!

I'm sure I hope it wont turn cold. There's so much influenza about.

- It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring. - My aunt died of influenza: so they said.

But it's my belief they done the old woman in.

- Done her in? - 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, she bit the bowl off the spoon.

- Dear me! - What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza?

And 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.

- What does doing her in mean? - Oh, thats the new small talk. To do someone in means to kill them.

- Oy, you surely dont believe that your aunt was killed? - Do I not!

- Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat. - But it cant have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that.

- It might have killed her. - Not her.

Gin was mother's milk to her.

- Besides, he'd poured so much down his own throat he knew the good of it. - Do you mean that he drank?

- Drank! My word! Something chronic. - How dreadful for you!

Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see.

But then he did not keep it up regular.

On the burst, as you might say, from time to time.

And always more agreeable when he had a drop in.

Theres lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with.

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.

- Here! what are you sniggering at? - It's the new small talk. You do it so awfully well.

If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at?

Have I said anything I oughtnt?

- Not at all, Miss Doolittle. - Well, thats a mercy, anyhow. What I always say is—

I must go.

- So pleased to have met you, Mrs Higgins. Goodbye. - Goodbye.

- Goodbye, Colonel Pickering. - Goodbye, Miss Doolittle.

Goodbye, all.

- Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so— - Walk! Not bloody likely.

I am going in a taxi.

- Well, I really cant get used to the new ways. - Oh, it's all right, mamma, quite right.

- People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned. - I daresay I am very old-fashioned;

but I do hope you wont begin using that expression, Clara. Dont you agree, Colonel Pickering?

Dont ask me.

Ive been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that sometimes I dont know whether I'm at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship's forecastle.

Nobody means anything by it.

And it's so quaint,

gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find... - Well, after that, I think it's time for us to go.

Yes: we have three at-homes to go to still. Goodbye, Mrs Higgins. Goodbye, Colonel Pickering. Goodbye, Professor Higgins.

- Goodbye. Don't forget to try on the new small talk at the three at-homes. Don't be nervous. Pitch in strong. - I will. Goodbye.

- Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery! - Such damned nonsense!

- Such bloody nonsense! Ha! ha! - Clara!

- Well, I ask you— Goodbye. - Goodbye. Would you like to meet Miss Doolittle again?

- Yes, I should, most awfully. - Well, you know my days.

- Yes, Thanks awfully. Goodbye. - Goodbye.

- Goodbye, Mr Higgins. - Goodbye. Goodbye.

Oh, it's no use. I shall never be able to bring myself to use that word.

- Dont. It's not compulsory, you know. Youll get on quite well without it. Goodbye. - Goodbye.

You mustnt mind Clara. We're so poor! and she gets to so few parties, poor child! She doesnt quite know.

- But the boy is nice. Dont you think so? - Oh, quite nice. I shall always be delighted to see him. - Oh, thank you, dear. Goodbye.

Well, mummy! Is Eliza presentable?

You silly boy, of course she's not presentable.

She is a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's;

but if you suppose for one moment she doesnt give herself away in every sentence she utters,

you must be perfectly cracked about her.

But dont you think something might be done? I mean something to eliminate the sanguinary element from her conversation.

- Not as long as she is in Henry's hands. - Do you mean my language is improper?

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

Well I must say —

Come, Higgins: you must learn to know yourself. I havnt heard language like yours since we used to review the volunteers in Hyde Park.

Well, if you say so, I dont suppose I dont always talk like a bishop.

- Colonel Pickering: will you tell me the exact state of things in Wimpole Street? - Oh, well, I have come to live there with Henry.

- We work together on my Indian Dialects; and we think it more convenient— - Yes, Quite so. I know all about that: it’s an excellent arrangement. But...

where does this girl live? - With us, of course. Where would she live?

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

- Oh, I think I know what you mean, Mrs Higgins. - Well, dash me if I do! she's useful. She knows where my things are, and remembers my appointments and so forth.

Besides, Ive had to work at the girl for months to get her to her present pitch.

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.

- Well, you certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll. - 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 turn 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. - I assure you, Mrs Higgins, we take Eliza very seriously. Why...

- Every week — every day almost — there is some new change. - Yes, by George: the hardest job I ever tackled.

- She regularly fills our lives up: doesnt she, Pick? - Oh, we're always talking Eliza. - Teaching Eliza. - Dressing Eliza.

- What! - Inventing new Elizas.

[HIGGINS only, full Shaw's text see in the last (out-of-range subtitle)] You see, she has the most extraordinary quickness of ear: just like a parrot. Ive tried her with every possible sort of sound that a human being can make: Continental dialects,African dialects, Hottentot clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and she picks them up like a shot, right away.

Sh-sh-sh — sh!

- I beg your pardon. - Sorry.

- When Pickering starts shouting nobody can get a word in edgeways. - Be quiet, Henry.

Colonel Pickering: dont you realize that when Eliza walked into Wimpole Street, something walked in with her?

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

It would have been more to the point if her mother had. But as her mother didnt something else did.

- What? - A problem.

- Oh, I see. You mean the problem of how to pass her off as a lady. - I'll solve that problem. Ive half solved it already.

No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures:

the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.

- I dont see anything in that. She can go her way with all the advantages I have given her. - The advantages...

of that poor woman who was here just nowl

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? - Oh, that will be all right, Mrs Higgins. - We'll find her some light employment.

- Yes, she's happy enough. Don't you worry about her. Goodbye. - No use bothering now. The thing's done. Bye-bye, mummy.

- There are plenty of openings. We'll do whats best. Goodbye. - Lets take her to the Shakespear exhibition at Earls Court.

- Yes: lets. Her remarks will be delicious. - She'll mimic all the people for us when we get home. - Ripping.

Oh, men! men!! men!!!

- I say, Pick: lock up, will you? I shant be going out again. - Right.

- Can Mrs Pearce go to bed? We dont want anything more, do we? - Lord, no!

Oh, I say: Mrs Pearce will row if we leave these things lying all over the drawing room.

Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She'll find them there in the morning. She’ll think we were drunk.

- We are, slightly. Are... Are there any letters? - I didnt look.

Oh, I wonder where the devil my slippers are!

Oh, only circulars, and this, eh... this coroneted billet-doux for you.

Money-lender.

Oh Lord! What an evening! What a crew! What a silly tomfoolery!

- Oh! there theyre, are they? - Well, I feel a bit tired. It's been a long day. The garden party, a dinner party, and then the reception!

Rather too much of a good thing.

- But youve won your bet, Higgins. Eliza did the trick, and something to spare, eh? - Thank God it's over!

Were you nervous at the garden party?

I was. Eliza didnt seem a bit nervous.

Oh, she wasnt 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 hadnt 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.

But when I saw we were going to win hands down, I felt like a bear in a cage. I tell you, Pickering, never again for me.

- No more artificial duchesses. The whole thing has been simple purgatory. -

Anyhow, it was a great success: an enormous success.

I was quite frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You see, a lot of the real people cant do it at all.

Yes: thats what makes me mad: the silly people dont know their own silly business.

However, it's over and done with; and now I can go to bed at last without dreading tomorrow.

I think I shall turn in too.

- Yes, we learned a great occasion and a triumph for you. Goodnight. - Goodnight.

Oh, Eliza...

put out the lights, will you?

and tell Mrs Pearce... I shall not take coffee in the morning: make me tea.

What the devil have I done with my slippers?

There are your slippers.

And there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day's luck with them!

What on earth—! Whats the matter? Get up.

- Anything wrong? - No! Nothing wrong—with you.

Ive won your bet for you, havnt I? Thats enough for you.

- I dont matter, I suppose. - You... You won my bet! Presumptuous insect! I won it.

- What did you throw those slippers at me for? - Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute.

Why don't you throw me back where you found me—in the gutter?

You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me back again there, do you?

The creature is nervous, after all.

Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How dare you shew your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet.

Oh, whats to become of me? Whats to become of me?

How the devil do I know whats to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you?

You dont care. I know you dont care. You wouldnt care if I was dead. I'm nothing to you —

not so much as them slippers. - Those slippers. - Those slippers.

I didnt think it made any difference now.

Why have you begun going on like this?

- May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here? - No.

- Has anyone treated you badly? Mrs Pearce? Colonel Pickering? Any of the servants? - No.

You don't presume to pretend that I have treated you badly?

- No. - I am very glad to hear it.

Perhaps youre tired after the strain of the day.

- Will you have a glass of champagne? - No. Thank you.

This has been coming on you for some days.

I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the garden party.

But thats all over now.

- Theres nothing more to worry about. - No. Theres nothing more for you to worry about.

- Oh God! I wish I was dead. - Why? In heaven's name, why?

- Listen to me, Eliza. All this irriation is purely subjective. - I dont understand. I'm too ignorant.

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.

I heard your prayers.

- “Thank God it's all over!” - Well, dont you thank God it's all over? Now you are free and can do what you like.

What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What is to become of me?

Oh, thats whats worrying you, is it?

I shouldnt bother about it if I were you.

I hadn't quite realized that you were going away.

You might marry, you know.

You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and youre not bad-looking:

Quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes—

not now, of course, because now youre crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when youre all right and...

quite yourself, youre what I would call attractive.

I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well.

- We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. - What do you mean?

I sold flowers. I didnt sell myself. Now that you have made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.

I wish you had left me where you found me.

Tosh, Eliza. Dont you insult human relations by dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You neednt marry the chap if you dont like him.

- And what else am I to do? - Lots of things.

What about your old idea of a florist's shop? Pickering could set you up in one: he has plenty of money.

Come! youll be all right.

I must boggle off to bed: I'm devily sleepy.

By the way, I came down for something: I forget what it was.

- Your slippers. - Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me.

- Before you go, sir— - Eh?

Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering?

What the devil use would they be to Pickering?

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

- Is that the way you feel towards us? - I dont want to hear anything more about that.

All I want to know is whether anything belongs to me.

My own clothes were burnt.

- Why need you start bothering about that in the middle of the night? - I want to know what I may take away with me.

- I dont want to be accused of stealing. - Stealing!

- You shouldnt have said that, Eliza. That shews a want of feeling. - I'm sorry.

I'm only a common ignorant girl; and in my station I have to be careful.

There cant be any feelings between the like of you and the like of me.

You may take the whole damned houseful if you like.

- Except the jewels. Theyre hired. Will that satisfy you? - Stop, please.

Will you take these to your room and keep them safe?

- I dont want to run the risk of their being missing. - Hand them over.

If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweller, I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat.

This ring isnt the jeweller's: it's the one you bought me in Brighton. I dont want it now.

- Ah! Dont you hit me. - Hit you!

Infamous creature, it is you who have hit me.

- You have wounded me to the heart. - I'm glad. Ive got a little of my own back, anyhow.

You have caused me to lose my temper: a thing that has hardly ever happened to me before.

I prefer to say nothing more about it now. I am going to bed.

- Youd better leave a note for Mrs Pearce about the coffee; for she wont be told by me. - 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 intimacy and regard on a heartless guttersnipe.

Damn Mrs Pearce; and damn the coffee; and damn you...

Mr Henry is downstairs with Colonel Pickering.

Well, shew them up.

Theyre using the telephone, maam.

- Telephoning to the police, I think. - What!

Mr Henry is in a state, maam. I thought I'd better tell you.

If you had told me that Mr Henry was not in a state it would have been more surprising.

- Well, tell them to come up when theyve finished with the police. - Yes, maam.

I suppose he's lost something. Oh...

Sarah... Go upstairs and tell Miss Doolittle that Mr Henry and the Colonel are here.

- Ask her not to come downstairs until I send for her. - Yes, maam.

- Look here, mother: heres a confounded thing! - Good morning.

- What is it? - Eliza's bolted. - Oh, you must have frightened her.

Frightened her! nonsense!

She was left last night, as usual, to turn out the lights and all that;

instead of going to bed she changed her clothes and went right off: her bed wasnt slept in. What am I to do?

- Do without, I'm afraid, dear. The girl has a perfect right to leave if she chooses. - But I cant find anything.

- I dont know what appointments Ive got. I'm— - Good morning, Mrs Higgins.

- Had Henry told you? - What does that ass of an inspector say? Have you offered a reward?

- You dont mean to say you have set the police after Eliza. - Of course.

What are the police for? What else could we do?

- The inspector made a lot of difficulties. You know I really think he suspected us of some improper purpose. - 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! - But we want to find her.

- Yes, we cant let her go like that, Mrs Higgins. What were we to do? - You have no more sense, either of you, than two children. Why could—

- Mr. Henry: a gentleman wants to see you very particular. He's been sent on from Wimpole Street. - Oh, bother! I cant see anybody now. Who is it?

- Mr Doolittle, sir. - Doolittle! Do you mean the dustman?

- Dustman! Oh no, sir: a gentleman. - By George, Pick, it's some relative of hers that she's gone to. Somebody we know nothing about.

- Send him up, quick. - Yes, sir.

- Genteel relatives! now we shall hear something. - Do you know any of her people?

- Only her father: the fellow we told you about. - Mr Doolittle.

- See here! Do you see this? You done this. - Done what, man? - This, I tell you. Look at it. Look at this hat. Look at this coat.

- Has Eliza been buying you clothes? - Eliza! not she. Why would she buy me clothes?

- Good morning, Mr Doolittle. Wont you sit down? - Asking your pardon, maam. Thank you.

- Ah! I am that full of everything that's happened to me that I cant think of anything else. - What has happened to you?

I shouldnt mind if it had only happened to me: anything might happen to anybody and only Providence to blame as you might say.

- But this is something you done to me: yes, you, Enry Iggins. - Have you found Eliza?

- Have you lost her? - Yes. - You have all the luck, you have.

No, I aint found her;

but she'll find me quick enough now after what you done to me. - But what has my son done to you, Mr Doolittle?

Done to me! He ruined me. Destroyed me happiness.

- Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality. - Youre drunk. Youre raving. Youre mad.

- I gave you five pounds. After that I had two conversations with you, at half-a- crown an hour. Ive never seen you since. - Oh!

Drunk am I? Mad am I? Tell me this. Did you or did you not write a letter to some old geezer in America

what was giving five millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the world,

and wanted you to invent a universal language for him? - Oh, that! Ezra P. Wannafeller! He's dead. - Yes: he’s dead; and I'm done for.

And did you or did you not write to him to say that the most original moralist at present in England,

was to the best of your knowledge, one Alfred Doolittle, common dustman? - Oh, after your last I recall making some silly joke of the kind.

You might well call it a silly joke. Put the lid on me right enough.

Just gave him the chance he wanted to shew 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 Predigested Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year

on condition that I lecture for his Wannafeller Moral Reform League as often as they ask me up to six times a year.

The devil he does! Whew! What a lark!

- Well, it is a safe thing for you, Doolittle. They wont ask you twice. - It aint the lecturing I mind.

I'll lecture them blue in the face.

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 should touch everyone of working for money when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Enry Iggins.

Now everyone touches me!

The doctors I see shove me out of the hospital before I could hardly stand on me legs, and nothing to pay.

Now they finds out that I'm not a healthy man and cant live unless they looks after me twice a day.

A year ago I hadnt a relative in the world except two or three that wouldnt speak to me. Now I've got fifty,

and not a decently wages among the lot of them.

And the next one to touch me will be you, Enry Iggins.

Yes, I'll have to learn to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper English.

Thats where you do come in; and I daresay thats what you done it for.

But, my dear Mr Doolittle, no one can force you to accept this bequest. You can repudiate it.

- Isnt that so, Colonel Pickering? - I believe so.

Thats the tragedy of it, maam.

It's easy to say chuck it; but I havnt the nerve. Which of us has?

We're all... intimidated. Intimidated, that's the word, maam.

What is there for me if I chuck it but the workhouse in me old age?

If I was one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit, I could chuck it;

But, as one of the undeserving poor,

it's nothing between me and the pauper's uniform but this

blasted three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class.

Pardon the expression, maam; but youd use it yourself if you had my provocation.

Theyve got you every way you turn:

it's a choice between, eh... the Skilly of the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class;

and I havent the nerve for the workhouse.

Thats what your son has brought me to.

Well, I'm very glad youre not going to do anything foolish, Mr Doolittle.

For this solves the problem of Eliza's future. You can provide for her now.

Yes, maam: I've got to provide for everyone now,

out of three thousand a year. - Nonsense! he cant provide for her. He shant provide for her.

She doesnt belong to him. I paid him five pounds for her. Doolittle: either youre an honest man or a rogue.

- A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a little of both. - Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no right to take her as well.

Henry: dont be absurd.

If you want to know where Eliza is, she is upstairs.

- Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her downstairs. - Be quiet, Henry. Sit down.

- But, mummy, I... - Sit down, dear; and listen to me.

Oh very well, very well, very well. But I think you might have told us this half an hour ago.

Eliza came to me this morning.

- She told me of the brutal way you two treated her. - What!

Dear Mrs Higgins, she's been telling you stories. We didnt treat her brutally.

We hardly spoke to her; and we parted on particularly good terms.

- Did you bully her after I went to bed? - 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.

Why? What did we do to her?

I think I know pretty well what you did.

- The girl is naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isnt that so, Mr Doolittle? - Very tender-hearted, maam.

- Takes after me. - Yes, just so.

She had become attached to both of you . She worked very hard for you, Henry.

Well, it seems that when the great day of trial arrived, and she did this wonderful thing for you with out 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 bored you had been 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.

We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to go to bed. Didn't we, Pick?

- That was all. - Quite sure? - Absolutely. Really, that was all.

You didnt thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell her how splendid she'd been.

- But she knew all that. We didnt make speeches, if thats what you mean. - Well...

- I suppose we were a bit inconsiderate. - Hm... - Is she very angry?

Well, I'm afraid she wont come 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. - Is she, by George? - 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. - Oh, all right. Very well. You behave yourself, Pick.

- Let us put on our best Sunday manners for this creature that we picked from the mud. - Now, now, Enry Iggins!

You have some consideration for my feelings as a middle class man.

Remember your promise, Henry.

Mr Doolittle: would you mind to step in outside just for a moment.

I dont want Eliza to have the shock of your news until she has made it up with these two gentlemen.

- Would you mind? - As you wish, maam. Anything to help Henry to keep her off my hands.

- Ask Miss Doolittle to come down, please. - Yes, maam.

- Now, Henry: be good. - I am behaving myself perfectly. - He is doing his best, Mrs Higgins.

Where the devil is that girl? Are we to wait here all morning?

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

- Quite well— - But of course you are: you are never ill.

Colonel Pickering, so glad to see you again.

- Quite chilly this morning, isnt it? - Dont you dare try those cheeks on me.

I taught them to you; and I'm not taking in. Dont be a fool. Get up and come home.

Very nicely put, indeed, Henry.

No woman could resist such an invitation. - You let her alone, mother. Let her speak for herself.

You will jolly soon see whether she has an idea that I havnt put into her head or a word that I havnt 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. - Yes, dear; but youll sit down, wont you?

Will you drop me altogether now that the experiment is over, Colonel Pickering?

- Oh dont. You mustnt think of it as an experiment. It shocks me, somehow. - Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf— - No.

I owe so much to you that I should be very unhappy if you forgot me.

- Really, very kind of you to say so, Miss Doolittle. - 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, isnt it?

You see it was so, 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.

I should never have known that

ladies and gentlemen didnt behave like that if you hadnt been there. - Well, you in...

Still, he taught you how to speak; and I couldnt have done that, you know.

- Of course: that is his profession. - Damnation! - It was just like

learning to dance in the fashionable way: there was nothing more than that in it.

- Do you know what began my real education? - What?

Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street.

That was the beginning of self-respect for me.

And there were a hundred little things that you never noticed, because they came naturally to you.

Things about standing up,

taking off your hat and opening door— - Oh, that was nothing. - Oh yes, it was.

Things that shewed you thought and felt about me as if I were something better than a... than a scullery-maid;

Although I know you would have been just the same to a scullery-maid if she had been let into the drawing room.

- You never took off your boots in the dining room when I was there. - Oh, you mustnt mind Higgins. He takes off his boots all over the place.

I know. I am not blaming him. It is his way, isnt it?

But it made such a difference to me that you didnt 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 forth) ,

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 he always will;

but I know I can be a lady to you,

because you always treat me as a lady, and you always will.

- Please dont grind your teeth, Henry. - It's really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.

- I should like you to call me Eliza, now, if you would. - Thank you. Eliza, of course.

And I should like...

Professor Higgins to call me Miss Doolittle.

- I'll see you damned first. - Henry! Henry! - Why dont you slang back at him? Dont stand it. It would do him good.

I cant. I could have done it once; but I cant go back to it now.

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.

Thats the real break-off with the corner of Tottenham Court Road. And leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.

Oh! Oh! but... but youre coming back to Wimpole Street, arnt you? I mean...

- Oh, you will forgive Higgins? - Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go.

Let us see how she can do without us.

- She will relapse into the gutter in three weeks without me at her elbow. - You wont relapse, will you, Eliza?

No: Never again. I have learnt my lesson.

I dont believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried.

- Ah... A-a-a-a-a-ah-ow-ooh! - Ha-ha-ha! ! Just so.

A-a-a-a-ahowooh! A-a-a-a-ahowooh! A-a-a-a-ahowooh! Victory! Victory!

Can you blame the girl? Ah, dont look at me like that, Eliza. It aint my fault. Ive come into some money.

- You must have touched a millionaire this time. - I have.

Hey, wouldn't I dress something special today?

I'm going to St George's, Hanover Square.

Your stepmother is going to marry me.

- Youre going to let yourself down to marry that low common woman! - He ought to, Eliza.

- Why has she changed her mind? - Intimidated, Governor. Intimidated. Middle class morality claims its victim.

Wont you put on your hat, Liza, and come and see me turned off?

Well, if the Colonel says I must, I'll demean myself. And get insulted for my pains, like enough.

Dont be afraid, Liza: she only [shoud be "never"] comes to words with anyone now, poor woman!

respectability has broke all the spirit out of her.

Be kind to them, Eliza. Make the best of it.

Well, just to shew theres no ill feeling. I'll be back in a moment.

I'm, eh, uncommon nervous about the ceremony, Colonel.

I wish youd come and see me through it. - See you... But youve been through it before, man. You were married to Eliza's mother.

Who told you that, Colonel?

- Nobody told me. But I concluded that—naturally— - No: that aint the natural way, Colonel: that's only the middle class way.

Dont say about it to Eliza. She dont know: I always had a certain delicacy about telling her.

Quite right. We'll leave it like that, if you dont mind.

- And youll come to the church, Colonel, see me through. - With pleasure. As far as a bachelor can.

May I come, Mr Doolittle?

- I should be very sorry to miss your wedding. - I should indeed be honored by your condescension, maam;

and my poor old woman would take it as a tremendous compliment.

She's been feeling very low, thinking of the happy days that are no more.

I'll order the horse and the carriage and get ready.

I shant be more than fifteen minutes. Eliza, I'm going to the church to see your father married.

You had better come with me. And the Colonel can go ahead with the bridegroom.

Bridegroom! What a word!

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

I dont think dad would allow me. Would you, dad?

They played you off very cunning, Eliza, those two sportsmen.

If there had been only one of them, you could have nailed him, you see, but it was two.

One of them chaperoned the other, as you might say.

It was very artful of you, Colonel; but I bear no malice: I should have done the same myself.

So long, Henry. See you in St George's, Eliza.

Do stay with us, Eliza.

Well, Eliza, youve had a bit of your own back, as you call it.

Have you had enough? are you going to be sensible? Or do you want any more?

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

- I havnt said that I want you back at all. - Oh, indeed.

- Then what are we talking about? - About you, not about me.

If you come back I shall treat you just as I have always treated you like.

And I dont intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering's.

Thats not true.

He treats a flower girl as if she was a duchess.

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

- The same to everybody. - Just so. - Like father.

Without accepting the comparison at all points, it is 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.

The great secret, Eliza,

is not having bad manners or good manners or any particular sort of manners but having the same manners 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. - Amen.

- You are a bom preacher. - The question is not whether I treat you badly, but whether you ever seen me treat anyone else better.

I dont care how you treat me. I dont mind your swearing at me.

I shouldnt mind a black eye: Ive had one before this.

- But I wont be passed over. - Then get out of my way; for I wont stop for you.

You talk of me as if I were a motor bus.

I tell you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no consideration for anyone.

- But I can do without you: dont think I cant. - I know you can. I told you you could.

- I know you did, you brute. You wanted to get rid of me. - Liar. - Thank you.

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

Dont you try to get round me.

- Youll have to do without me. - I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire.

But... I shall miss you, Eliza.

I have learnt something from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully.

I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.

Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs.

When you get lonely without me, you can turn the machine on.

- It's got no feelings to hurt. - I cant turn your soul on.

- Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you. - 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 dont care a bit for her.

- And you dont care a bit for me. - 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 anybody else ask?

- I wont care for anyone that doesnt care for me. - Commercial principles, Eliza. Like...

s'yollin voylets [selling violets], isnt it? - Dont sneer at me. - I have never sneered in my life.

Sneering doesnt become either the human soul or the human face. I am expressing my righteous contempt for Commercialism. I dont and wont trade in affection.

You call me a brute because you couldnt buy a claim on me by fetching my slippers and fetching 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 youll get nothing else.

If you dare 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.

- What did you do it for if you didnt care for me? - Why, because it was my job.

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

Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble.

- I'm no preacher: I dont notice things like that. I notice that you dont notice me. - Eliza: youre 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.

- So you can come back or go to the devil: which you choose. - What am I to come back for? - Fun! For the fun of it.

Thats why I took you on.

And you may throw me out tomorrow if I dont do everything you want me to?

- Yes; and you may walk out tomorrow if I dont do everything you want me to. - And live with my stepmother? - Yes, or sell flowers.

Oh! if only I 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. - Not a bit. I can adopt you as my daughter

and settle money on you if you like. Or would you rather marry Pickering?

- I wouldnt marry you if you asked me. - I dont suppose Pickering would. He's as confirmed an old bachelor as I am.

Thats not what I want; and dont you think it.

Ive always had chaps enough wanting me that way.

- Freddy Hill writes to me twice and three times a day, sheets and sheets. - Damn his impudence!

- He has a right to if he likes, poor lad. And he does love me. - You have no right to encourage him. - Every girl has a right to be loved. - What! By fools like that?

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 dont want me. - Can he make anything of you? Thats the point.

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

No I dont. That's not the sort of feeling I want from you at all.

Dont you be too sure of yourself or of me.

I could have been a bad girl if I'd liked.

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

I... 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... what I did... what I did was not for the dresses and the taxis:

I did it because we were pleasant together and I come — I 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.

Of course. Thats just how I feel. And how Pickering feels.

Eliza: youre a fool.

- Oh! Thats not a proper answer to give me. - It's all youll get until you stop being a common idiot.

If you cant stand the coldness of my sort of life, and the strain of it, go back to the gutter.

Work til youre 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 Music and Philosophy and Art.

You find me cold, selfish, unfeeling, dont you? Very well: be off with you to the sort of people you like.

Marry some sentimental hog with plenty of money, and a thick pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots to kick you with.

- If you cant appreciate what youve got, youd better get what you can appreciate. - Oh, you are a cruel tyrant.

I cant talk to you: you turn everything against me: I'm always in the wrong.

You know very well all the time that youre nothing but a bully.

You know I cant go back to the gutter, as you call it,

and that I have no real friends in the world except you and the Colonel.

And you know I couldnt bear to live with a low common man after you two;

and it's wicked and cruel of you to insult me by pretending that I could.

You think that I must go back to Wimpole Street because I have no place to go but father's.

But dont 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 I'm able to support him.

Freddy!!! that young fool!

The poor devil who couldnt get a job as an errand boy even if he had the guts to try for it!

Woman: do you not understand that I have made you a consort for a king?

Freddy loves me: that makes him king enough for me.

I dont want him to work: he wasnt brought up to it as I was.

- I'll go and be a teacher. - What will you teach, in heaven's name?

What you taught me.

- I'll teach phonetics. - Ha! ha! ha! - I'll offer myself as an assistant to that hairy-faced Hungarian.

What! that humbug! that toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods!

You dare take one step in his direction and I'll wring your neck. Do you hear?

Dare. Well, wring away. What do I care?

I knew youd strike me some day.

Aha! Now I know how to deal with you.

What a fool I was not to think of it before!

You cant take away the knowledge that you gave me.

And 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! Thats done you, Enry Iggins, it az.

Now I dont care that 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 anyone 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.

You damned impudent slut, you!

But it's better than snivelling; better than fetching slippers and finding spectacles.

By George, Eliza, I said I'd make a woman of you; and I have.

- I like you like this. - Yes:

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

Of course I do, you silly girl.

Five minutes ago you were a millstone round my neck. Now youre 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.

- The carriage is waiting, Eliza. Are you ready? - Quite.

- Ah, is the Professor coming? - Certainly not. He cant behave himself in church.

He makes remarks out loud all the time about the clergyman's pronunciation.

Then... I shall not see you again, Professor.

- Goodbye. - Goodbye, dear. - Goodbye, mother.

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.

Number eights are too small for you if you want them lined with lamb's wool.

You have three new ties that you have forgotten in the drawer of your washstand.

Colonel Pickering prefers double Gloucester to Stilton; and you dont notice the difference.

I telephoned Mrs Pearce this morning not to forget the ham.

What you are to do without me I cannot imagine.

I’m afraid youve spoilt that girl, Henry.

I should be uneasy about you and her if she were less fond of Colonel Pickering.

Pickering! Nonsense: she's going to marry Freddy.

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! Freddy! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

Subtitles by: Vitaly (vipo) (Leningrad (USSR)-Gush Dan (Israel)). Editing program: "Subtitle Edit".

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. Ive 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 Monckton; HIGGINS been at it all her life. PICKERING though six months ago, she'd never as much as touched a piano—