LIZA. I'm a good girl, I am; and I won't pick up no free and easy ways.
HIGGINS. Eliza: if you say again that you're a good girl, your father
shall take you home.
LIZA. Not him. You don't 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]. Don't you give me none of your lip; and don't let me
hear you giving this gentleman any of it neither, or you'll 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 ain't 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. You'll 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, ma'am. [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. Don't you believe the old liar. He'd as soon you set a bull-dog
on him as a clergyman. You won't see him again in a hurry.
HIGGINS. I don't want to, Eliza. Do you?
LIZA. Not me. I don't want never to see him again, I don't. He's 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; and he works at it sometimes too--for
exercise--and earns good money at it. Ain't 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 don't 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 wouldn't speak to them, you know.