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

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

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, show them up.

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

MRS. HIGGINS. What!

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

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

THE parlour-MAID. Yes, mam [going].

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

THE parlour-MAID. Yes, mam.

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Eliza's bolted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. But we want to find her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PICKERING. Doolittle! Do you mean the dustman?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Done what, man?

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

PICKERING. Has Eliza been buying you clothes?

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

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

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

HIGGINS. What the dickens has happened to you?

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

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

DOOLITTLE. Have you lost her?

HIGGINS. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PICKERING. I believe so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. I--

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

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

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

HIGGINS [bounding up again] What!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PICKERING [shrugging his shoulders] That was all.

MRS. HIGGINS [ironically] Quite sure?

PICKERING. Absolutely. Really, that was all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MRS. HIGGINS. Now, Henry: be good.

HIGGINS. I am behaving myself perfectly.

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Why?

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

Higgins groans. Another very trying pause.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Higgins sits down again, savagely.

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

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

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

PICKERING [impulsively] No.

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Well!!

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Damnation!

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

PICKERING. What?

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

PICKERING. Oh, that was nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PICKERING. Thank you. Eliza, of course.

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

HIGGINS. I'll see you damned first.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry! Henry!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DOOLITTLE. Who told you that, Colonel?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Just so.

LIZA. Like father.

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

LIZA. Amen. You are a born preacher.

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Liar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIZA. What am I to come back for?

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

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

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

LIZA. And live with my stepmother?

HIGGINS. Yes, or sell flowers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIZA. Every girl has a right to be loved.

HIGGINS. What! By fools like that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HIGGINS. Ha! Ha! Ha!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIZA. Quite. Is the Professor coming?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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