Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (55 page)

HIGGINS [
routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the piano
] I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but surely I dont do them habitually. [
Angrily
] By the way: my dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.

MRS. PEARCE No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe your fingers—

HIGGINS [
yelling
] Oh very well, very well: I’ll wipe them in my hair in future.

MRS. PEARCE I hope youre not offended, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS
[shocked at finding himself thought capable of an unamiable sentiment]
Not at all, not at all. Youre quite right, Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you brought from abroad? I really cant put her back into her old things.

HIGGINS Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE Thank you, sir. Thats all.
[She goes out
]
.

HIGGINS You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man. Ive never been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous, like other chaps. And yet shes firmly persuaded that I’m an arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I cant account for it.
⁶

MRS. PEARCE If you please, sir, the trouble’s beginning already. Theres a dustman
^gv
downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you. He says you have his daughter here.

PICKERING
[rising]
Phew! I say!
[He retreats to the hearthrug
].

HIGGINS [
promptly
] Send the blackguard
^gw
up.

MRS. PEARCE Oh, very well, sir. [
She goes out
].

PICKERING He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.

HIGGINS Nonsense. Of course hes a blackguard.

PICKERING Whether he is or not, I’m afraid we shall have some trouble with him.

HIGGINS
[confidently]
Oh no: I think not. If theres any trouble he shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get something interesting out of him.

PICKERING About the girl?

HIGGINS No. I mean his dialect.

PICKERING Oh!

MRS. PEARCE [
at the door
] Doolittle, sir. [
She admits DOOLITTLE and retires
].

DOOLITTLE [
at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is his
man] Professor Higgins?

HIGGINS Here. Good morning. Sit down.

DOOLITTLE Morning, Governor. [
He sits down magisterially
] I come about a very serious matter, Governor.

HIGGINS [to PICKERING] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think. [
DOOLITTLE opens his mouth, amazed. HIGGINS continues]
What do you want, Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE [
menacingly
] I want my daughter: thats what I want. See?

HIGGINS Of course you do. Youre her father, arnt you? You dont suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I’m glad to see you have some spark of family feeling left. Shes upstairs. Take her away at once.

DOOLITTLE [
rising, fearfully
taken
aback
] What!

HIGGINS Take her away. Do you suppose I’m going to keep your daughter for you?

DOOLITTLE
[remonstrating]
Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fairity to take advantage of a man like this? The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [
He sits down again
].

HIGGINS Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask me to teach her how to speak properly so that she could get a place in a flower-shop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have been here all the time. [
Bullying him
] How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose.

DOOLITTLE
[protesting]
No, Governor.

HIGGINS You must have. How else could you possibly know that she is here?

DOOLITTLE Dont take a man up like that, Governor.

HIGGINS The police shall take you up. This is a plant—a plot to extort money by threats. I shall telephone for the police
[he goes resolutely to the telephone and opens the directory].

DOOLITTLE Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to the gentleman here: have I said a word about money?

HIGGINS
[throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle with a poser]
What else did you come for?

DOOLITTLE
[sweettyl
Well, what would a man come for? Be human, Governor.

HIGGINS
[disarmed]
Alfred: did you put her up to it?

D0OLITTL So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible oath I aint seen the girl these two months past.

HIGGINS Then how did you know she was here?

DOOLITTLE [
“most musical, most melancholy”
]
^gx
I’ll tell you, Governor, if youll only let me get a word in. I’m willing to tell you. I’m wanting to tell you. I’m waiting to tell you.

HIGGINS Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild.
⁷
“I’m willing to tell you: I’m wanting to tell you: I’m waiting to tell you.” Sentimental rhetoric! thats the Welsh strain in him. It also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.

PICKERING Oh, please, Higgins: I’m west country myself.
[To DOOLITTLE]
How did you know the girl was here if you didnt send her?

DOOLITTLE It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of her landlady, he is. He hung about on the chance of her giving him another ride home. Well, she sent him back for her luggage when she heard you was willing for her to stop here. I met the boy at the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street.

HIGGINS Public house. Yes?

DOOLITTLE The poor man’s club, Governor: why shouldnt I?

PICKERING Do let him tell his story, Higgins.

DOOLITTLE He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my feelings and my duty as a father? I says to the boy, “You bring me the luggage,
^»
I says—

PICKERING Why didnt you go for it yourself?

DOOLITTLE Landlady wouldnt have trusted me with it, Governor. Shes that kind of woman: you know. I had to give the boy a penny afore he trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to her just to oblige you like, and make myself agreeable. Thats all.

HIGGINS How much luggage?

DOOLITTLE Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle of jewelry, and a bird-cage. She said she didnt want no clothes. What was I to think from that, Governor? I ask you as a parent what was I to think?

HIGGINS So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh?

DOOLITTLE [
appreciatively: relieved at being so well understood
] Just so, Governor. Thats right.

PICKERING But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to take her away?

DOOLITTLE Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?

HIGGINS [
determinedly
] Youre going to take her away, double quick. [
He crosses to the hearth and rings the bell
].

DOOLITTLE [
rising
] No, Governor. Dont say that. I’m not the man to stand in my girl’s light. Heres a career opening for her, as you might say; and—

HIGGINS Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza’s father. He has come to take her away. Give her to him.
[He goes back to the piano, with an air of washing his hands of the whole affair
]
.

DOOLITTLE No. This is a misunderstanding. Listen here—

MRS. PEARCE He cant take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he?You told me to burn her clothes.

DOOLITTLE Thats right. I cant carry the girl through the streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.

HIGGINS You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take your daughter. If she has no clothes go out and buy her some.

DOOLITTLE [
desperate
] Wheres the clothes she come in? Did I burn them or did your missus here?

MRS. PEARCE I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for some clothes for your girl. When they come you can take her away. You can wait in the kitchen. This way, please.

DOOLITTLE Listen here, Governor.You and me is men of the world, aint we?

HIGGINS Oh! Men of the world, are we?Youd better go, Mrs. Pearce.

MRS. PEARCE I think so, indeed, sir.
[
She goes, with dignity
].

PICKERING The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.

DOOLITTLE
[to PICKERING]
I thank you, Governor.

[
To HIGGINS, who takes refuge on the piano bench, a little overwhelmed by the proximity of his visitor; for DOOLITTLE has a professional, flavor of dust about him
]
.
Well, the truth is, Ive taken a sort of fancy to you, Governor; and if you want the girl, I’m not so set on having her back home again but what I might be open to an arrangement. Regarded in the light of a young woman, shes a fine handsome girl. As a daughter shes not worth her keep; and so I tell you straight. All I ask is my rights as a father; and youre the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I can see youre one of the straight sort, Governor. Well, whats a five pound note to you? And whats Eliza to me?
[He returns to his chair and sits down judicially].

PICKERING I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins’s intentions are entirely honorable.

DOOLITTLE Course they are, Governor. If I thought they wasnt, Id ask fifty.

HIGGINS
[revolted]
Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that you would sell your daughter for £50?

DOOLITTLE Not in a general way I wouldnt; but to oblige a gentleman like you I’d do a good deal, I do assure you.

PICKERING Have you no morals, man?

DOOLITTLE
[unabashed]
Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know. But if Liza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?

HIGGINS
[troubled]
I dont know what to do, Pickering. There can be no question that as a matter of morals it’s a positive crime to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough justice in his claim.

DOOLITTLE Thats it, Governor. Thats all I say. A father’s heart, as it were.

PICKERING Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly right—

DOOLITTLE Dont say that, Governor. Dont look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that hes up agen middle class morality all the time. If theres anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: “Youre undeserving; so you cant have it.” But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what hes brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until shes growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

HIGGINS [
rising, and going over to PICKERING
] Pickering: if we were to take this man in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

PICKERING What do you say to that, Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. Ive heard all the preachers and all the prime ministers—for I’m a thinking man and game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the other amusements—and I tell you it’s a dog’s life anyway you look at it. Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in society with another, it‘s—it’s—well, it’s the only one that has any ginger in it, to my taste.

HIGGINS I suppose we must give him a fiver.

PICKERING He’ll make a bad use of it, I’m afraid.

DOOLITTLE Not me, Governor, so help me I wont. Dont you be afraid that I’ll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There wont be a penny of it left by Monday: I’ll have to go to work same as if I’d never had it. It wont pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it’s not been throwed away. You couldnt spend it better.

HIGGINS [
taking out his pocket book and coming between DOOLITTLE and the piano
]
This is irresistible. Lets give him ten.
[
He offers two notes to the dustman
].