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

PICKERING What do you say to that, Doolittle?

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

HIGGINS I suppose we must give him a fiver.

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

DOOLITTLE Not me, Governor, so help me I wont. Dont 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 to work same as if I’d never had it. It wont pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it’s not been throwed away. You couldnt spend it better.

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

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

PICKERING Why dont you marry that missus of yours? I rather draw the line at encouraging that sort of immorality.

DOOLITTLE Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I’m willing. It’s me that suffers by it. Ive no hold on her. I got to be agreeable to her. I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes something sinful. I’m a slave to that woman, Governor, just because I’m not her lawful husband. And she knows it too. Catch her marrying me! Take my advice, Governor: marry Eliza while shes 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 you than her, because youre a man, and shes only a woman and dont know how to be happy anyhow.

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

DOOLITTLE Thank you kindly, Governor.

HIGGINS Youre sure you wont take ten?

DOOLITTLE Not now. Another time, Governor.

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

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

THE JAPANESE LADY Garn! Dont you know your own daughter?

LIZA Dont I look silly?

HIGGINS Silly?

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Now, Mr. Higgins, please dont say anything to make the girl conceited about herself.

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

MRS. PEARCE Please, sir.

HIGGINS [correcting himself] I mean extremely silly.

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

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

DOOLITTLE [with fatherly pride] Well, I never thought she’d clean up as good looking as that, Governor. Shes a credit to me, aint she?

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

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

LIZA It didnt: not all of it; and I dont care who hears me say it. Mrs. Pearce knows.

HIGGINS What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?

MRS. PEARCE [blandly] Oh, nothing, sir. It doesnt matter.

LIZA I had a good mind to break it. I didnt know which way to look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.

HIGGINS Over what?

MRS. PEARCE Over the looking-glass, sir.

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

DOOLITTLE Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her a lick of a strap now and again. Dont put it on me, Governor. She aint accustomed to it, you see: thats all. But she’ll soon pick up your free-and-easy ways.

LIZA I’m a good girl, I am; and I wont pick up no free and easy ways.

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

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

DOOLITTLE Well, what else would I want money for? To put into the plate in church, I suppose. [She puts out her tongue at him. He is so incensed by this that PICKERING presently finds it necessary to step between them]. Dont you give me none of your lip; and dont let me hear you giving this gentleman any of it neither, or youll hear from me about it. See?

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

DOOLITTLE No, Governor: I 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, Governor, you do it yourself with a strap. So long, gentlemen. [He turns to go].

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

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

LIZA Dont you believe the old liar. He’d as soon you set a bulldog on him as a clergyman. You wont see him again in a hurry.

HIGGINS I dont want to, Eliza. Do you?

LIZA Not me. I dont want never to see him again, I dont. Hes a disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead of working at his trade.

PICKERING What is his trade, Eliza?

LIZA Talking money out of other people’s pockets into his own. His proper trade’s a navvy;[207] and he works at it sometimes too — for exercise — and earns good money at it. Aint you going to call me Miss Doolittle any more?

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

LIZA Oh, I dont mind; only it sounded so genteel. I should just like to take a taxi to the corner of Tottenham Court Road and get out there and tell it to wait for me, just to put the girls in their place a bit. I wouldnt speak to them, you know.

PICKERING Better wait til we get you something really fashionable.

HIGGINS Besides, you shouldnt cut your old friends now that you have risen in the world. Thats what we call snobbery.