Act I
Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians running for shelter into the market and under the portico of St. Paul’s Church, where there are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which he is writing busily.
The church clock strikes the first quarter.
The Daughter
In the space between the central pillars, close to the one on her left
I’m getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be doing all this time? He’s been gone twenty minutes.
The Mother
On her daughter’s right
Not so long. But he ought to have got us a cab by this.
A Bystander
On the lady’s right
He won’t get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their theatre fares.
The Mother
But we must have a cab. We can’t stand here until half-past eleven. It’s too bad.
The Bystander
Well, it ain’t my fault, missus.
The Daughter
If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got one at the theatre door.
The Mother
What could he have done, poor boy?
The Daughter
Other people got cabs. Why couldn’t he?
Freddy rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street side, and comes between them closing a dripping umbrella. He is a young man of twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the ankles.
The Daughter
Well, haven’t you got a cab?
Freddy
There’s not one to be had for love or money.
The Mother
Oh, Freddy, there must be one. You can’t have tried.
The Daughter
It’s too tiresome. Do you expect us to go and get one ourselves?
Freddy
I tell you they’re all engaged. The rain was so sudden: nobody was prepared; and everybody had to take a cab. I’ve been to Charing Cross one way and nearly to Ludgate Circus the other; and they were all engaged.
The Mother
Did you try Trafalgar Square?
Freddy
There wasn’t one at Trafalgar Square.
The Daughter
Did you try?
Freddy
I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect me to walk to Hammersmith?
The Daughter
You haven’t tried at all.
The Mother
You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and don’t come back until you have found a cab.
Freddy
I shall simply get soaked for nothing.
The Daughter
And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in this draught, with next to nothing on. You selfish pig—
Freddy
Oh, very well: I’ll go, I’ll go.
He opens his umbrella and dashes off Strandwards, but comes into collision with a flower girl, who is hurrying in for shelter, knocking her basket out of her hands. A blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder, orchestrates the incident
The Flower Girl
Nah then, Freddy: look wh’ y’ gowin, deah.
Freddy
Sorry
He rushes off.
The Flower Girl
Picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket
There’s menners f’ yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad.
She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady’s right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist.
The Mother
How do you know that my son’s name is Freddy, pray?
The Flower Girl
Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy atbaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’them?
Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.
The Daughter
Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!
The Mother
Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies?
The Daughter
No. I’ve nothing smaller than sixpence.
The Flower Girl
Hopefully
I can give you change for a tanner, kind lady.
The Mother
To Clara
Give it to me.
Clara parts reluctantly.
Now
To the girl
This is for your flowers.
The Flower Girl
Thank you kindly, lady.
The Daughter
Make her give you the change. These things are only a penny a bunch.
The Mother
Do hold your tongue, Clara.
To the girl.
You can keep the change.
The Flower Girl
Oh, thank you, lady.
The Mother
Now tell me how you know that young gentleman’s name.
The Flower Girl
I didn’t.
The Mother
I heard you call him by it. Don’t try to deceive me.
The Flower Girl
Protesting
Who’s trying to deceive you? I called him Freddy or Charlie same as you might yourself if you was talking to a stranger and wished to be pleasant.
She sits down beside her basket.
The Daughter
Sixpence thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy that.
She retreats in disgust behind the pillar.
An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into shelter, and closes a dripping umbrella. He is in the same plight as Freddy, very wet about the ankles. He is in evening dress, with a light overcoat. He takes the place left vacant by the daughter’s retirement.
The Gentleman
Phew!
The Mother
To the gentleman
Oh, sir, is there any sign of its stopping?
The Gentleman
I’m afraid not. It started worse than ever about two minutes ago.
He goes to the plinth beside the flower girl; puts up his foot on it; and stoops to turn down his trouser ends.
The Mother
Oh, dear!
She retires sadly and joins her daughter.
The Flower Girl
Taking advantage of the military gentleman’s proximity to establish friendly relations with him.
If it’s worse it’s a sign it’s nearly over. So cheer up, Captain; and buy a flower off a poor girl.
The Gentleman
I’m sorry, I haven’t any change.
The Flower Girl
I can give you change, Captain,
The Gentlemen
For a sovereign? I’ve nothing less.
The Flower Girl
Garn! Oh do buy a flower off me, Captain. I can change half-a-crown. Take this for tuppence.
The Gentleman
Now don’t be troublesome: there’s a good girl.
Trying his pockets
I really haven’t any change—Stop: here’s three hapence, if that’s any use to you
He retreats to the other pillar.
The Flower Girl
Disappointed, but thinking three halfpence better than nothing
Thank you, sir.
The Bystander
To the girl
You be careful: give him a flower for it. There’s a bloke here behind taking down every blessed word you’re saying.
All turn to the man who is taking notes.
The Flower Girl
Springing up terrified
I ain’t done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I’ve a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb.
Hysterically
I’m a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me.
General hubbub, mostly sympathetic to the flower girl, but deprecating her excessive sensibility. Cries of Don’t start hollerin. Who’s hurting you? Nobody’s going to touch you. What’s the good of fussing? Steady on. Easy, easy, etc., come from the elderly staid spectators, who pat her comfortingly. Less patient ones bid her shut her head, or ask her roughly what is wrong with her. A remoter group, not knowing what the matter is, crowd in and increase the noise with question and answer: What’s the row? What she do? Where is he? A tec taking her down. What! him? Yes: him over there: Took money off the gentleman, etc. The flower girl, distraught and mobbed, breaks through them to the gentleman, crying mildly
Oh, sir, don’t let him charge me. You dunno what it means to me. They’ll take away my character and drive me on the streets for speaking to gentlemen. They—
The Note Taker
Coming forward on her right, the rest crowding after him
There, there, there, there! Who’s hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for?
The Bystander
It’s all right: he’s a gentleman: look at his boots.
Explaining to the note taker
She thought you was a copper’s nark, sir.
The Note Taker
With quick interest
What’s a copper’s nark?
The Bystander
Inept at definition
It’s a—well, it’s a copper’s nark, as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer.
The Flower Girl
Still hysterical
I take my Bible oath I never said a word—
The Note Taker
Overbearing but good-humored
Oh, shut up, shut up. Do I look like a policeman?
The Flower Girl
Far from reassured
Then what did you take down my words for? How do I know whether you took me down right? You just show me what you’ve wrote about me.
The note taker opens his book and holds it steadily under her nose, though the pressure of the mob trying to read it over his shoulders would upset a weaker man.
What’s that? That ain’t proper writing. I can’t read that.
The Note Taker
I can.
Reads, reproducing her pronunciation exactly
“Cheer ap, Keptin; n’ haw ya flahr orf a pore gel.”
The Flower Girl
Much distressed
It’s because I called him Captain. I meant no harm.
To the gentleman
Oh, sir, don’t let him lay a charge agen me for a word like that. You—
The Gentleman
Charge! I make no charge.
To the note taker
Really, sir, if you are a detective, you need not begin protecting me against molestation by young women until I ask you. Anybody could see that the girl meant no harm.
The Bystanders Generally
Demonstrating against police espionage
Course they could. What business is it of yours? You mind your own affairs. He wants promotion, he does. Taking down people’s words! Girl never said a word to him. What harm if she did? Nice thing a girl can’t shelter from the rain without being insulted, etc., etc., etc.
She is conducted by the more sympathetic demonstrators back to her plinth, where she resumes her seat and struggles with her emotion.
The Bystander
He ain’t a tec. He’s a blooming busybody: that’s what he is. I tell you, look at his boots.
The Note Taker
Turning on him genially
And how are all your people down at Selsey?
The Bystander
Suspiciously
Who told you my people come from Selsey?
The Note Taker
Never you mind. They did.
To the girl
How do you come to be up so far east? You were born in Lisson Grove.
The Flower Girl
Appalled
Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson Grove? It wasn’t fit for a pig to live in; and I had to pay four-and-six a week.
In tears
Oh, boo—hoo—oo—
The Note Taker
Live where you like; but stop that noise.
The Gentleman
To the girl
Come, come! he can’t touch you: you have a right to live where you please.
A Sarcastic Bystander
Thrusting himself between the note taker and the gentleman
Park Lane, for instance. I’d like to go into the Housing Question with you, I would.
The Flower Girl
Subsiding into a brooding melancholy over her basket, and talking very low-spiritedly to herself
I’m a good girl, I am.
The Sarcastic Bystander
Not attending to her
Do you know where I come from?
The Note Taker
Promptly
Hoxton.
Titterings. Popular interest in the note taker’s performance increases.
The Sarcastic One
Amazed
Well, who said I didn’t? Bly me! You know everything, you do.
The Flower Girl
Still nursing her sense of injury
Ain’t no call to meddle with me, he ain’t.
The Bystander
To her
Of course he ain’t. Don’t you stand it from him.
To the note taker
See here: what call have you to know about people what never offered to meddle with you? Where’s your warrant?
Several Bystanders
Encouraged by this seeming point of law
Yes: where’s your warrant?
The Flower Girl
Let him say what he likes. I don’t want to have no truck with him.
The Bystander
You take us for dirt under your feet, don’t you? Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman!
The Sarcastic Bystander
Yes: tell HIM where he come from if you want to go fortune-telling.
The Note Taker
Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India.
The Gentleman
Quite right.
Great laughter. Reaction in the note taker’s favor. Exclamations of He knows all about it. Told him proper. Hear him tell the toff where he come from? etc.
. May I ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall?
The Note Taker
I’ve thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.
The rain has stopped; and the persons on the outside of the crowd begin to drop off.
The Flower Girl
Resenting the reaction
He’s no gentleman, he ain’t, to interfere with a poor girl.
The Daughter
Out of patience, pushing her way rudely to the front and displacing the gentleman, who politely retires to the other side of the pillar
What on earth is Freddy doing? I shall get pneumonia if I stay in this draught any longer.
The Note Taker
To himself, hastily making a note of her pronunciation of “monia”
Earlscourt.
The Daughter
Violently
Will you please keep your impertinent remarks to yourself?
The Note Taker
Did I say that out loud? I didn’t mean to. I beg your pardon. Your mother’s Epsom, unmistakeably.
The Mother
Advancing between her daughter and the note taker
How very curious! I was brought up in Largelady Park, near Epsom.
The Note Taker
Uproariously amused
Ha! ha! What a devil of a name! Excuse me.
To the daughter
You want a cab, do you?
The Daughter
Don’t dare speak to me.
The Mother
Oh, please, please Clara.
Her daughter repudiates her with an angry shrug and retires haughtily.
We should be so grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab.
The note taker produces a 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
Hanwell.
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 change. I’m sorry
He goes away.
Higgins
Shocked at girl’s mendacity
Liar. You said you could change half-a-crown.
The Flower Girl
Rising in desperation
You ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought.
Flinging the basket at his feet
Take the whole blooming basket for sixpence.
The church clock strikes the second quarter.
Higgins
Hearing in it the voice of God, rebuking him for his Pharisaic want of charity to the poor girl
A reminder.
He raises his hat solemnly; then throws a handful of money into the basket and follows Pickering.
The Flower Girl
Picking up a half-crown
Ah—ow—ooh!
Picking up a couple of florins
Aaah—ow—ooh!
Picking up several coins
Aaaaaah—ow—ooh!
Picking up a half-sovereign
Aasaaaaaaaaah—ow—ooh!!!
Freddy
Springing out of a taxicab
Got one at last. Hallo!
To the girl
Where are the two ladies that were here?
The Flower Girl
They walked to the bus when the rain stopped.
Freddy
And left me with a cab on my hands. Damnation!
The Flower Girl
With grandeur
Never you mind, young man. I’m going home in a taxi.
She sails off to the cab. The driver puts his hand behind him and holds the door firmly shut against her. Quite understanding his mistrust, she shows him her handful of money.
Eightpence ain’t no object to me, Charlie.
He grins and opens the door.
Angel Court, Drury Lane, round the corner of Micklejohn’s oil shop. Let’s see how fast you can make her hop it.
She gets in and pulls the door to with a slam as the taxicab starts.
Freddy
Well, I’m dashed!