Название:
Автор:
Жанр:
Серия:
Издательство:
do this for your living at a music hall?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
|
