Pygmalion

ever uttered it,  Mrs. Pearce. She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding an uneasy conscience with a judicial air. Except perhaps in a moment of extreme and justifiable excitement.

 Mrs. Pearce
Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.


Higgins
Oh, that! Mere alliteration,  Mrs. Pearce, natural to a poet.


 Mrs. Pearce
Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it.


Higgins
Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?


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


Higgins
Certainly. Quite right. Most important.


 Mrs. Pearce
I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy in leaving things about.


Higgins
Going to her solemnly. Just so. I intended to call your attention to that He passes on to Pickering, who is enjoying the conversation immensely. It is these little things that matter, Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. He comes to anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an unassailable position.


 Mrs. Pearce
Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good as not to eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in the jam only last week.


Higgins
Routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the piano. I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but surely I don’t do them habitually. Angrily. By the way: my dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.


 Mrs. Pearce
No doubt it does,  Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe your fingers⁠—


Higgins
Yelling. Oh very well, very well: I’ll wipe them in my hair in future.


 Mrs. Pearce
I hope you’re not offended,  Mr. Higgins.


Higgins
Shocked at finding himself thought capable of an unamiable sentiment. Not at all, not at all. You’re quite right,  Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?


 Mrs. Pearce
No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you brought from abroad? I really can’t put her back into her old things.


Higgins
Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?


 Mrs. Pearce
Thank you, sir. That’s all. She goes out.


Higgins
You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man. I’ve never been able to feel really grownup and tremendous, like other chaps. And yet she’s firmly persuaded that I’m an arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I can’t account for it.



 Mrs. Pearce returns.


 Mrs. Pearce
If you please, sir, the trouble’s beginning already. There’s a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you. He says you have his daughter here.


Pickering
Rising. Phew! I say! He retreats to the hearthrug.


Higgins
Promptly. Send the blackguard up.


 Mrs. Pearce
Oh, very well, sir. She goes out.


Pickering
He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.


Higgins
Nonsense. Of course he’s a blackguard.


Pickering
Whether he is or not, I’m afraid we shall have some trouble with him.


Higgins
Confidently. Oh no: I think not. If there’s any trouble he shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get something interesting out of him.


Pickering
About the girl?


Higgins
No. I mean his dialect.


Pickering
Oh!


 Mrs. Pearce
At the door. Doolittle, sir. She admits Doolittle and retires.



Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim covering his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather interesting features, and seems equally free from fear and conscience. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to his feelings without reserve. His present pose is that of wounded honor and stern resolution.


Doolittle
At the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is his man. Professor Higgins?


Higgins
Here. Good morning. Sit down.


Doolittle
Morning, Governor. He sits down magisterially. I come about a very serious matter, Governor.


Higgins
To Pickering. Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think. Doolittle opens his mouth, amazed. Higgins continues. What do you want, Doolittle?


Doolittle
Menacingly. I want my daughter: that’s what I want. See?


Higgins
Of course you do. You’re her father, aren’t you? You don’t suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I’m glad to see you have some spark of family feeling left. She’s upstairs. Take her away at once.


Doolittle
Rising, fearfully taken aback. What!


Higgins
Take her away. Do you suppose I’m going to keep your daughter for you?


Doolittle
Remonstrating. Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? He sits down again.


Higgins
Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask me to teach her how to speak properly so that she could get a place in a flower-shop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have been here all the time. Bullying him. How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose.


Doolittle
Protesting. No, Governor.


Higgins
You must have. How else could you possibly know that she is here?


Doolittle
Don’t take a man up like that, Governor.


Higgins
The police shall take you up. This is a plant⁠—a plot to extort money by threats. I shall telephone for the police He goes resolutely to the telephone and opens the directory.


Doolittle
Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to the gentleman here: have I said a