looking as that, Governor. Sheâs a credit to me, ainât she?
Liza
I tell you, itâs 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. Washingâs a treat for them. Wish they saw what it is for the like of me!
Higgins
Iâm glad the bathroom met with your approval.
Liza
It didnât: not all of it; and I donât care who hears me say it. Mrs. Pearce knows.
Higgins
What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?
Mrs. Pearce
Blandly. Oh, nothing, sir. It doesnât matter.
Liza
I had a good mind to break it. I didnât 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. Donât put it on me, Governor. She ainât accustomed to it, you see: thatâs all. But sheâll soon pick up your free-and-easy ways.
Liza
Iâm a good girl, I am; and I wonât pick up no free and easy ways.
Higgins
Eliza: if you say again that youâre a good girl, your father shall take you home.
Liza
Not him. You donât 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. Donât you give me none of your lip; and donât let me hear you giving this gentleman any of it neither, or youâll 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 ainât 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 Elizaâs mind improved, Governor, you do it yourself with a strap. So long, gentlemen.
He turns to go.
Higgins
Impressively. Stop. Youâll come regularly to see your daughter. Itâs your duty, you know. My brother is a clergyman; and he could help you in your talks with her.
Doolittle
Evasively. Certainly. Iâll 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, maâam.
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. Pearceâs difficult disposition, and follows her.
Liza
Donât you believe the old liar. Heâd as soon you set a bulldog on him as a clergyman. You wonât see him again in a hurry.
Higgins
I donât want to, Eliza. Do you?
Liza
Not me. I donât want never to see him again, I donât. Heâs 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 peopleâs pockets into his own. His proper tradeâs a navvy; and he works at it sometimes tooâ âfor exerciseâ âand earns good money at it. Ainât 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 donât 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 wouldnât speak to them, you know.
Pickering
Better wait til we get you something really fashionable.
Higgins
Besides, you shouldnât cut your old friends now that you have risen in the world. Thatâs what we call snobbery.
Liza
You donât call the like of them my friends now, I should hope. Theyâve took it out of me often enough with their ridicule when they had the chance; and now I mean to get a bit of my own back. But if Iâm to have fashionable clothes, Iâll wait. I should like to have some. Mrs. Pearce says youâre going to give me some to wear in bed at night different to what I wear in the daytime; but it do seem a waste of money when you could get something to show. Besides, I never could fancy changing into cold things on a winter night.
Mrs. Pearce
Coming back. Now, Eliza. The new things have come for you to try on.
Liza
Ahâ âowâ âooâ âooh!
She rushes out.
Mrs. Pearce
Following her. Oh, donât rush about like that, girl
She shuts the door behind her.
Higgins
Pickering: we have taken on a stiff job.
Pickering
With conviction. Higgins: we have.
Act III
It is Mrs. Higginsâs at-home day. Nobody has yet arrived. Her drawing-room, in a flat on Chelsea embankment, has three windows looking on the river; and the ceiling is not so lofty as it would be in an older house of the same pretension. The windows are open, giving access to a balcony with flowers in pots. If you stand with your face to the windows, you have the fireplace on your left and the door in the right-hand wall close to the corner nearest the windows.
Mrs. Higgins was brought up on Morris and Burne Jones; and her room, which is very unlike her sonâs room in Wimpole Street, is not crowded with furniture and little tables and nicknacks. In the middle of the room there is a big ottoman; and this, with the carpet, the Morris wallpapers, and the Morris chintz window curtains and brocade covers of
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