George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

THE BYSTANDER You take us for dirt under your feet, dont 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? {48} 48 4 (p. 374) “May I ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall?”: The origin of this episode in the play can be found in a letter Shaw wrote to The Morning Leader (August 16, 1901) about his having been invited to the docks to explain elocution to the laborers. When Shaw instead explained to them the “phonetic alphabet,” they were amused and called him “a quick-change artist.” Also, though they recognized the difference between their pronunciation and that of educated people, “the nature of that difference — which they earnestly desired to remove — was a mystery to them.”

THE NOTE TAKER Ive 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] Hes no gentleman, he aint, 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 didnt mean to. I beg your pardon. Your mother’s Epsom, unmistake ably.

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 Dont 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 aint a police whistle: thats a sporting whistle.

THE FLOWER GIRL [still preoccupied with her wounded feelings] Hes no right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any lady’s.

THE NOTE TAKER I dont know whether youve noticed it; but the rain stopped about two minutes ago.

THE BYSTANDER So it has. Why didnt 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. [188] Hanwell County Asylum for the insane. 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. [189] That is, worried and chased.

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. Thats 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 [190] Working-class district of London; a slum area in the mid to late 1800s. with £80 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] Ive 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 dont sit there crooning like a bilious [191] Peevish, or ill-natured. 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-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. Thats 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 27AWimpole Street. Come and see me to-morrow.

PICKERING I’m at the Carlton. Come with me now and lets 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 havnt any change. I’m sorry [he goes away].

HIGGINS [ shocked at girl’s mendacity] Liar. You said you could change half-a-crown.