Pygmalion

LIZA [springing up and running between Pickering and Mrs. Pearce for

protection] No! I'll call the police, I will.

MRS. PEARCE. But I've no place to put her.

HIGGINS. Put her in the dustbin.

LIZA. Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!

PICKERING. Oh come, Higgins! be reasonable.

MRS. PEARCE [resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins: really

you must. You can't walk over everybody like this.

Higgins, thus scolded, subsides. The hurricane is succeeded by a zephyr

of amiable surprise.

HIGGINS [with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk over

everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering, I never had the

slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose is that we

should be kind to this poor girl. We must help her to prepare and fit

herself for her new station in life. If I did not express myself

clearly it was because I did not wish to hurt her delicacy, or yours.

Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.

MRS. PEARCE [to Pickering] Well, did you ever hear anything like that,

sir?

PICKERING [laughing heartily] Never, Mrs. Pearce: never.

HIGGINS [patiently] What's the matter?

MRS. PEARCE. Well, the matter is, sir, that you can't take a girl up

like that as if you were picking up a pebble on the beach.

HIGGINS. Why not?

MRS. PEARCE. Why not! But you don't know anything about her. What about

her parents? She may be married.

LIZA. Garn!

HIGGINS. There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married indeed!

Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn out drudge of

fifty a year after she's married.

LIZA. Who'd marry me?

HIGGINS [suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low tones

in his best elocutionary style] By George, Eliza, the streets will be

strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before

I've done with you.

MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her.

LIZA [rising and squaring herself determinedly] I'm going away. He's

off his chump, he is. I don't want no balmies teaching me.

HIGGINS [wounded in his tenderest point by her insensibility to his

elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce: you

needn't order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.

LIZA [whimpering] Nah--ow. You got no right to touch me.

MRS. PEARCE. You see now what comes of being saucy. [Indicating the

door] This way, please.

LIZA [almost in tears] I didn't want no clothes. I wouldn't have taken

them [she throws away the handkerchief]. I can buy my own clothes.

HIGGINS [deftly retrieving the handkerchief and intercepting her on her

reluctant way to the door] You're 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.