Act III
It is Mrs. Higgins’s 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 son’s 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 wall-papers, and the Morris chintz window curtains and brocade covers of the ottoman and its cushions, supply all the ornament, and are much too handsome to be hidden by odds and ends of useless things. A few good oil-paintings from the exhibitions in the Grosvenor Gallery thirty years ago (the Burne Jones, not the Whistler side of them) are on the walls. The only landscape is a Cecil Lawson on the scale of a Rubens. There is a portrait of Mrs. Higgins as she was when she defied fashion in her youth in one of the beautiful Rossettian costumes which, when caricatured by people who did not understand, led to the absurdities of popular estheticism in the eighteen-seventies.
In the corner diagonally opposite the door Mrs. Higgins, now over sixty and long past taking the trouble to dress out of the fashion, sits writing at an elegantly simple writing-table with a bell button within reach of her hand. There is a Chippendale chair further back in the room between her and the window nearest her side. At the other side of the room, further forward, is an Elizabethan chair roughly carved in the taste of Inigo Jones. On the same side a piano in a decorated case. The corner between the fireplace and the window is occupied by a divan cushioned in Morris chintz.
It is between four and five in the afternoon.
The door is opened violently; and Higgins enters with his hat on.
Mrs. Higgins
Dismayed
Henry!
Scolding him
What are you doing here to-day? It is my at home day: you promised not to come.
As he bends to kiss her, she takes his hat off, and presents it to him.
Higgins
Oh bother!
He throws the hat down on the table.
Mrs. Higgins
Go home at once.
Higgins
Kissing her
I know, mother. I came on purpose.
Mrs. Higgins
But you mustn’t. I’m serious, Henry. You offend all my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you.
Higgins
Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people don’t mind.
He sits on the settee.
Mrs. Higgins
Oh! don’t they? Small talk indeed! What about your large talk? Really, dear, you mustn’t stay.
Higgins
I must. I’ve a job for you. A phonetic job.
Mrs. Higgins
No use, dear. I’m sorry; but I can’t get round your vowels; and though I like to get pretty postcards in your patent shorthand, I always have to read the copies in ordinary writing you so thoughtfully send me.
Higgins
Well, this isn’t a phonetic job.
Mrs. Higgins
You said it was.
Higgins
Not your part of it. I’ve picked up a girl.
Mrs. Higgins
Does that mean that some girl has picked you up?
Higgins
Not at all. I don’t mean a love affair.
Mrs. Higgins
What a pity!
Higgins
Why?
Mrs. Higgins
Well, you never fall in love with anyone under forty-five. When will you discover that there are some rather nice-looking young women about?
Higgins
Oh, I can’t be bothered with young women. My idea of a loveable woman is something as like you as possible. I shall never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some habits lie too deep to be changed.
Rising abruptly and walking about, jingling his money and his keys in his trouser pockets
Besides, they’re all idiots.
Mrs. Higgins
Do you know what you would do if you really loved me, Henry?
Higgins
Oh bother! What? Marry, I suppose?
Mrs. Higgins
No. Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your pockets.
With a gesture of despair, he obeys and sits down again.
That’s a good boy. Now tell me about the girl.
Higgins
She’s coming to see you.
Mrs. Higgins
I don’t remember asking her.
Higgins
You didn’t. I asked her. If you’d known her you wouldn’t have asked her.
Mrs. Higgins
Indeed! Why?
Higgins
Well, it’s like this. She’s a common flower girl. I picked her off the kerbstone.
Mrs. Higgins
And invited her to my at-home!
Higgins
Rising and coming to her to coax her
Oh, that’ll be all right. I’ve taught her to speak properly; and she has strict orders as to her behavior. She’s to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody’s health—Fine day and How do you do, you know—and not to let herself go on things in general. That will be safe.
Mrs. Higgins
Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides! perhaps about our outsides! How could you be so silly, Henry?
Higgins
Impatiently
Well, she must talk about something.
He controls himself and sits down again.
Oh, she’ll be all right: don’t you fuss. Pickering is in it with me. I’ve a sort of bet on that I’ll pass her off as a duchess in six months. I started on her some months ago; and she’s getting on like a house on fire. I shall win my bet. She has a quick ear; and she’s been easier to teach than my middle-class pupils because she’s had to learn a complete new language. She talks English almost as you talk French.
Mrs. Higgins
That’s satisfactory, at all events.
Higgins
Well, it is and it isn’t.
Mrs. Higgins
What does that mean?
Higgins
You see, I’ve got her pronunciation all right; but you have to consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces; and that’s where—
They are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.
The Parlor-maid
Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill.
She withdraws.
Higgins
Oh Lord!
He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and makes for the door; but before he reaches it his mother introduces him.
Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who sheltered from the rain in Covent Garden. The mother is well bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means. The daughter has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in society: the bravado of genteel poverty.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
To Mrs. Higgins
How do you do?
They shake hands.
Miss Eynsford Hill
How d’you do?
She shakes.
Mrs. Higgins
Introducing
My son Henry.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.
Higgins
Glumly, making no movement in her direction
Delighted.
He backs against the piano and bows brusquely.
Miss Eynsford Hill
Going to him with confident familiarity
How do you do?
Higgins
Staring at her
I’ve seen you before somewhere. I haven’t the ghost of a notion where; but I’ve heard your voice.
Drearily
It doesn’t matter. You’d better sit down.
Mrs. Higgins
I’m sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustn’t mind him.
Miss Eynsford Hill
Gaily
I don’t.
She sits in the Elizabethan chair.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
A little bewildered
Not at all.
She sits on the ottoman between her daughter and Mrs. Higgins, who has turned her chair away from the writing-table.
Higgins
Oh, have I been rude? I didn’t mean to be.
He goes to the central window, through which, with his back to the company, he contemplates the river and the flowers in Battersea Park on the opposite bank as if they were a frozen dessert.
The parlor-maid returns, ushering in Pickering.
The Parlor-maid
Colonel Pickering
She withdraws.
Pickering
How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?
Mrs. Higgins
So glad you’ve come. Do you know Mrs. Eynsford Hill—Miss Eynsford Hill?
Exchange of bows. The Colonel brings the Chippendale chair a little forward between Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Higgins, and sits down.
Pickering
Has Henry told you what we’ve come for?
Higgins
Over his shoulder
We were interrupted: damn it!
Mrs. Higgins
Oh Henry, Henry, really!
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Half rising
Are we in the way?
Mrs. Higgins
Rising and making her sit down again
No, no. You couldn’t have come more fortunately: we want you to meet a friend of ours.
Higgins
Turning hopefully
Yes, by George! We want two or three people. You’ll do as well as anybody else.
The parlor-maid returns, ushering Freddy.
The Parlor-maid
Mr. Eynsford Hill.
Higgins
Almost audibly, past endurance
God of Heaven! another of them.
Freddy
Shaking hands with Mrs. Higgins
Ahdedo?
Mrs. Higgins
Very good of you to come.
Introducing
Colonel Pickering.
Freddy
Bowing
Ahdedo?
Mrs. Higgins
I don’t think you know my son, Professor Higgins.
Freddy
Going to Higgins
Ahdedo?
Higgins
Looking at him much as if he were a pickpocket
I’ll take my oath I’ve met you before somewhere. Where was it?
Freddy
I don’t think so.
Higgins
Resignedly
It don’t matter, anyhow. Sit down. He shakes Freddy’s hand, and almost slings him on the ottoman with his face to the windows; then comes round to the other side of it.
Higgins
Well, here we are, anyhow!
He sits down on the ottoman next Mrs. Eynsford Hill, on her left.
And now, what the devil are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?
Mrs. Higgins
Henry: you are the life and soul of the Royal Society’s soirees; but really you’re rather trying on more commonplace occasions.
Higgins
Am I? Very sorry.
Beaming suddenly
I suppose I am, you know.
Uproariously
Ha, ha!
Miss Eynsford Hill
Who considers Higgins quite eligible matrimonially
I sympathize. I haven’t any small talk. If people would only be frank and say what they really think!
Higgins
Relapsing into gloom
Lord forbid!
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Taking up her daughter’s cue
But why?
Higgins
What they think they ought to think is bad enough, Lord knows; but what they really think would break up the whole show. Do you suppose it would be really agreeable if I were to come out now with what I really think?
Miss Eynsford Hill
Gaily
Is it so very cynical?
Higgins
Cynical! Who the dickens said it was cynical? I mean it wouldn’t be decent.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Seriously
Oh! I’m sure you don’t mean that, Mr. Higgins.
Higgins
You see, we’re all savages, more or less. We’re supposed to be civilized and cultured—to know all about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of these names?
To Miss Hill
What do you know of poetry?
To Mrs. Hill
What do you know of science?
Indicating Freddy
What does he know of art or science or anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of philosophy?
Mrs. Higgins
Warningly
Or of manners, Henry?
The Parlor-maid
Opening the door
Miss Doolittle.
She withdraws.
Higgins
Rising hastily and running to Mrs. Higgins
Here she is, mother.
He stands on tiptoe and makes signs over his mother’s head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is her hostess.
Eliza, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression of such remarkable distinction and beauty as she enters that they all rise, quite flustered. Guided by Higgins’s signals, she comes to Mrs. Higgins with studied grace.
Liza
Speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and great beauty of tone
How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?
She gasps slightly in making sure of the H in Higgins, but is quite successful.
Mr. Higgins told me I might come.
Mrs. Higgins
Cordially
Quite right: I’m very glad indeed to see you.
Pickering
How do you do, Miss Doolittle?
Liza
Shaking hands with him
Colonel Pickering, is it not?
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
I feel sure we have met before, Miss Doolittle. I remember your eyes.
Liza
How do you do?
She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in the place just left vacant by Higgins.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Introducing
My daughter Clara.
Liza
How do you do?
Clara
Impulsively
How do you do?
She sits down on the ottoman beside Eliza, devouring her with her eyes.
Freddy
Coming to their side of the ottoman
I’ve certainly had the pleasure.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Introducing
My son Freddy.
Liza
How do you do?
Freddy bows and sits down in the Elizabethan chair, infatuated.
Higgins
Suddenly
By George, yes: it all comes back to me!
They stare at him.
Covent Garden!
Lamentably
What a damned thing!
Mrs. Higgins
Henry, please!
He is about to sit on the edge of the table.
Don’t sit on my writing-table: you’ll break it.
Higgins
Sulkily
Sorry.
He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire-irons on his way; extricating himself with muttered imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey by throwing himself so impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it. Mrs. Higgins looks at him, but controls herself and says nothing.
A long and painful pause ensues.
Mrs. Higgins
At last, conversationally
Will it rain, do you think?
Liza
The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.
Freddy
Ha! ha! how awfully funny!
Liza
What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.
Freddy
Killing!
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
I’m sure I hope it won’t turn cold. There’s so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.
Liza
Darkly
My aunt died of influenza: so they said.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Clicks her tongue sympathetically
!!!
Liza
In the same tragic tone
But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.
Mrs. Higgins
Puzzled
Done her in?
Liza
Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Startled
Dear me!
Liza
Piling up the indictment
What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
What does doing her in mean?
Higgins
Hastily
Oh, that’s the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
To Eliza, horrified
You surely don’t believe that your aunt was killed?
Liza
Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
But it can’t have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed her.
Liza
Not her. Gin was mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’d poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Do you mean that he drank?
Liza
Drank! My word! Something chronic.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
How dreadful for you!
Liza
Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular.
Cheerfully
On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he’d drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. There’s lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with.
Now quite at her ease
You see, it’s like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he’s sober; and then it makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy.
To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter
Here! what are you sniggering at?
Freddy
The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.
Liza
If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at?
To Higgins
Have I said anything I oughtn’t?
Mrs. Higgins
Interposing
Not at all, Miss Doolittle.
Liza
Well, that’s a mercy, anyhow.
Expansively
What I always say is—
Higgins
Rising and looking at his watch
Ahem!
Liza
Looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising
Well: I must go.
They all rise. Freddy goes to the door.
So pleased to have met you. Good-bye.
She shakes hands with Mrs. Higgins.
Mrs. Higgins
Good-bye.
Liza
Good-bye, Colonel Pickering.
Pickering
Good-bye, Miss Doolittle.
They shake hands.
Liza
Nodding to the others
Good-bye, all.
Freddy
Opening the door for her
Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so—
Liza
She goes out.
Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddy goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of Eliza.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Suffering from shock
Well, I really can’t get used to the new ways.
Clara
Throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan chair.
Oh, it’s all right, mamma, quite right. People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
I daresay I am very old-fashioned; but I do hope you won’t begin using that expression, Clara. I have got accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, and calling everything filthy and beastly; though I do think it horrible and unladylike. But this last is really too much. Don’t you think so, Colonel Pickering?
Pickering
Don’t ask me. I’ve been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes don’t know whether I’m at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship’s forecastle.
Clara
It’s all a matter of habit. There’s no right or wrong in it. Nobody means anything by it. And it’s so quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Rising
Well, after that, I think it’s time for us to go.
Pickering and Higgins rise.
Clara
Rising
Oh yes: we have three at homes to go to still. Good-bye, Mrs. Higgins. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering. Good-bye, Professor Higgins.
Higgins
Coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying her to the door
Good-bye. Be sure you try on that small talk at the three at-homes. Don’t be nervous about it. Pitch it in strong.
Clara
All smiles
I will. Good-bye. Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery!
Higgins
Tempting her
Such damned nonsense!
Clara
Such bloody nonsense!
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Convulsively
Clara!
Clara
Ha! ha!
She goes out radiant, conscious of being thoroughly up to date, and is heard descending the stairs in a stream of silvery laughter.
Freddy
To the heavens at large
Well, I ask you
He gives it up, and comes to Mrs. Higgins.
Good-bye.
Mrs. Higgins
Shaking hands
Good-bye. Would you like to meet Miss Doolittle again?
Freddy
Eagerly
Yes, I should, most awfully.
Mrs. Higgins
Well, you know my days.
Freddy
Yes. Thanks awfully. Good-bye.
He goes out.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Good-bye, Mr. Higgins.
Higgins
Good-bye. Good-bye.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
To Pickering
It’s no use. I shall never be able to bring myself to use that word.
Pickering
Don’t. It’s not compulsory, you know. You’ll get on quite well without it.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Only, Clara is so down on me if I am not positively reeking with the latest slang. Good-bye.
Pickering
Good-bye
They shake hands.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
To Mrs. Higgins
You mustn’t mind Clara.
Pickering, catching from her lowered tone that this is not meant for him to hear, discreetly joins Higgins at the window.
We’re so poor! and she gets so few parties, poor child! She doesn’t quite know.
Mrs. Higgins, seeing that her eyes are moist, takes her hand sympathetically and goes with her to the door.
But the boy is nice. Don’t you think so?
Mrs. Higgins
Oh, quite nice. I shall always be delighted to see him.
Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Thank you, dear. Good-bye.
She goes out.
Higgins
Eagerly
Well? Is Eliza presentable?
He swoops on his mother and drags her to the ottoman, where she sits down in Eliza’s place with her son on her left
Pickering returns to his chair on her right.
Mrs. Higgins
You silly boy, of course she’s not presentable. She’s a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker’s; but if you suppose for a moment that she doesn’t give herself away in every sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her.
Pickering
But don’t you think something might be done? I mean something to eliminate the sanguinary element from her conversation.
Mrs. Higgins
Not as long as she is in Henry’s hands.
Higgins
Aggrieved
Do you mean that my language is improper?
Mrs. Higgins
No, dearest: it would be quite proper—say on a canal barge; but it would not be proper for her at a garden party.
Higgins
Deeply injured
Well I must say—
Pickering
Interrupting him
Come, Higgins: you must learn to know yourself. I haven’t heard such language as yours since we used to review the volunteers in Hyde Park twenty years ago.
Higgins
Sulkily
Oh, well, if you say so, I suppose I don’t always talk like a bishop.
Mrs. Higgins
Quieting Henry with a touch
Colonel Pickering: will you tell me what is the exact state of things in Wimpole Street?
Pickering
Cheerfully: as if this completely changed the subject
Well, I have come to live there with Henry. We work together at my Indian Dialects; and we think it more convenient—
Mrs. Higgins
Quite so. I know all about that: it’s an excellent arrangement. But where does this girl live?
Higgins
With us, of course. Where would she live?
Mrs. Higgins
But on what terms? Is she a servant? If not, what is she?
Pickering
Slowly
I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Higgins.
Higgins
Well, dash me if I do! I’ve had to work at the girl every day for months to get her to her present pitch. Besides, she’s useful. She knows where my things are, and remembers my appointments and so forth.
Mrs. Higgins
How does your housekeeper get on with her?
Higgins
Mrs. Pearce? Oh, she’s jolly glad to get so much taken off her hands; for before Eliza came, she had to have to find things and remind me of my appointments. But she’s got some silly bee in her bonnet about Eliza. She keeps saying “You don’t think, sir”: doesn’t she, Pick?
Pickering
Yes: that’s the formula. “You don’t think, sir.” That’s the end of every conversation about Eliza.
Higgins
As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. I’m worn out, thinking about her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.
Mrs. Higgins
You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.
Higgins
Playing! The hardest job I ever tackled: make no mistake about that, mother. But you have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her. It’s filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.
Pickering
Drawing his chair closer to Mrs. Higgins and bending over to her eagerly
Yes: it’s enormously interesting. I assure you, Mrs. Higgins, we take Eliza very seriously. Every week—every day almost—there is some new change.
Closer again
We keep records of every stage—dozens of gramophone disks and photographs—
Higgins
Assailing her at the other ear
Yes, by George: it’s the most absorbing experiment I ever tackled. She regularly fills our lives up; doesn’t she, Pick?
Pickering
We’re always talking Eliza.
Higgins
Teaching Eliza.
Pickering
Dressing Eliza.
Mrs. Higgins
What!
Higgins
Inventing new Elizas.
Higgins and Pickering, speaking together:
Higgins
You know, she has the most extraordinary quickness of ear: just like a parrot. I’ve tried her with every possible sort of sound that a human being can make—Continental dialects, African dialects, Hottentot clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and she picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she had been at it all her life.
Pickering
I assure you, my dear Mrs. Higgins, that girl is a genius. She can play the piano quite beautifully We have taken her to classical concerts and to music halls; and it’s all the same to her: she plays everything she hears right off when she comes home, whether it’s Beethoven and Brahms or Lehar and Lionel Morickton; though six months ago, she’d never as much as touched a piano.
Mrs. Higgins
Putting her fingers in her ears, as they are by this time shouting one another down with an intolerable noise
Sh—sh—sh—sh!
They stop.
Pickering
I beg your pardon.
He draws his chair back apologetically.
Higgins
Sorry. When Pickering starts shouting nobody can get a word in edgeways.
Mrs. Higgins
Be quiet, Henry. Colonel Pickering: don’t you realize that when Eliza walked into Wimpole Street, something walked in with her?
Pickering
Her father did. But Henry soon got rid of him.
Mrs. Higgins
It would have been more to the point if her mother had. But as her mother didn’t something else did.
Pickering
But what?
Mrs. Higgins
Unconsciously dating herself by the word
A problem.
Pickering
Oh, I see. The problem of how to pass her off as a lady.
Higgins
I’ll solve that problem. I’ve half solved it already.
Mrs. Higgins
No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.
Higgins
I don’t see anything in that. She can go her own way, with all the advantages I have given her.
Mrs. Higgins
The advantages of that poor woman who was here just now! The manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own living without giving her a fine lady’s income! Is that what you mean?
Pickering
Indulgently, being rather bored
Oh, that will be all right, Mrs. Higgins.
He rises to go.
Higgins
Rising also
We’ll find her some light employment.
Pickering
She’s happy enough. Don’t you worry about her. Good-bye.
He shakes hands as if he were consoling a frightened child, and makes for the door.
Higgins
Anyhow, there’s no good bothering now. The thing’s done. Good-bye, mother.
He kisses her, and follows Pickering.
Pickering
Turning for a final consolation
There are plenty of openings. We’ll do what’s right. Good-bye.
Higgins
To Pickering as they go out together
Let’s take her to the Shakespear exhibition at Earls Court.
Pickering
Yes: let’s. Her remarks will be delicious.
Higgins
She’ll mimic all the people for us when we get home.
Pickering
Ripping.
Both are heard laughing as they go downstairs.
Mrs. Higgins
Rises with an impatient bounce, and returns to her work at the writing-table. She sweeps a litter of disarranged papers out of her way; snatches a sheet of paper from her stationery case; and tries resolutely to write. At the third line she gives it up; flings down her pen; grips the table angrily and exclaims
Oh, men! men!! men!!!