Pygmalion | Page 9

whistle]. Oh,
thank you. [She joins her daughter]. The note taker blows a piercing
blast.
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. There! I knowed he was a
plain-clothes copper.
THE BYSTANDER. That ain't a police whistle: that's a sporting
whistle.

THE FLOWER GIRL [still preoccupied with her wounded feelings]
He's no right to take away my character. My character is the same to
me as any lady's.
THE NOTE TAKER. I don't know whether you've noticed it; but the
rain stopped about two minutes ago.
THE BYSTANDER. So it has. Why didn't you say so before? and us
losing our time listening to your silliness. [He walks off towards the
Strand].
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. I can tell where you come from.
You come from Anwell. Go back there.
THE NOTE TAKER [helpfully] _H_anwell.
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [affecting great distinction of
speech] Thenk you, teacher. Haw haw! So long [he touches his hat with
mock respect and strolls off].
THE FLOWER GIRL. Frightening people like that! How would he like
it himself.
THE MOTHER. It's quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor bus.
Come. [She gathers her skirts above her ankles and hurries off towards
the Strand].
THE DAUGHTER. But the cab--[her mother is out of hearing]. Oh,
how tiresome! [She follows angrily].
All the rest have gone except the note taker, the gentleman, and the
flower girl, who sits arranging her basket, and still pitying herself in
murmurs.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Poor girl! Hard enough for her to live without
being worrited and chivied.
THE GENTLEMAN [returning to his former place on the note taker's
left] How do you do it, if I may ask?
THE NOTE TAKER. Simply phonetics. The science of speech. That's
my profession; also my hobby. Happy is the man who can make a
living by his hobby! You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by
his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within
two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly
coward!
THE GENTLEMAN. But is there a living in that?
THE NOTE TAKER. Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts.

Men begin in Kentish Town with 80 pounds a year, and end in Park
Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but
they give themselves away every time they open their mouths. Now I
can teach them--
THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him mind his own business and leave a poor
girl--
THE NOTE TAKER [explosively] Woman: cease this detestable
boohooing instantly; or else seek the shelter of some other place of
worship.
THE FLOWER GIRL [with feeble defiance] I've a right to be here if I
like, same as you.
THE NOTE TAKER. A woman who utters such depressing and
disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere--no right to live.
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of
articulate speech: that your native language is the language of
Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like
a bilious pigeon.
THE FLOWER GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in
mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head]
Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!
THE NOTE TAKER [whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound!
[He writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels
exactly] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo!
THE FLOWER GIRL [tickled by the performance, and laughing in
spite of herself] Garn!
THE NOTE TAKER. You see this creature with her kerbstone English:
the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well,
sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an
ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid
or shop assistant, which requires better English. That's the sort of thing
I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine
scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.
THE GENTLEMAN. I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and--
THE NOTE TAKER [eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel
Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanscrit?
THE GENTLEMAN. I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?
THE NOTE TAKER. Henry Higgins, author of Higgins's Universal

Alphabet.
PICKERING [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you.
HIGGINS. I was going to India to meet you.
PICKERING. Where do you live?
HIGGINS. 27A Wimpole Street. Come and see me tomorrow.
PICKERING. I'm at the Carlton. Come with me now and let's have a
jaw over some supper.
HIGGINS. Right you are.
THE FLOWER GIRL [to Pickering, as he passes her] Buy a flower,
kind gentleman. I'm short for my lodging.
PICKERING. I really haven't any