Chapter: 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. Walk! Not bloody likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi. [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:
    PICKERING.  I assure you, my dear Mrs. Higgins, that girl
    HIGGINS.    just like a parrot. I've tried her with every
    PICKERING.  is a genius. She can play the piano quite beautifully
    HIGGINS.    possible sort of sound that a human being can make--
    PICKERING.  We have taken her to classical concerts and to music
    HIGGINS.    Continental dialects, African dialects, Hottentot
    PICKERING.  halls; and it's all the same to her: she plays everything
    HIGGINS.    clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and
    PICKERING.  she hears right off when she comes home, whether it's
    HIGGINS.    she picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she had
    PICKERING.  Beethoven and Brahms or Lehar and Lionel Morickton;
    HIGGINS.    been at it all her life.
    PICKERING.  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!!!

 A few months later, Higgins's mother is writing letters in her drawing room when she is interrupted by her son. She scolds him for turning up during her "at-home day," the day when she receives guests. Mrs. Higgins claims that her son scares off her guests. Higgins explains his bet with Pickering over Eliza and says that she is coming to the house to try out her accent. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are shown in, and they are the same mother and daughter who were waiting for a cab at the beginning of the play. Higgins recognizes them, but he cannot figure out where he has seen them before. Freddy also arrives. Miss Eynsford Hill tries to flirt with Mr. Higgins, but he rails at the company for having no knowledge of science, philosophy, or poetry--merely knowing how to act in society. Eliza is shown in, exquisitely dressed, and she makes quite an impression. In fact, Freddy falls in love with her. Mr. Higgins realizes that they all met on that day at Covent Garden, but nobody else makes the connection. Eliza, who has been warned to limit her conversation to the weather and to people's health, talks about an aunt of hers who supposedly died of influenza but who was perhaps killed so that the killer might steal her new straw hat. Mr. Higgins grows alarmed, and Eliza leaves, but the Eynsford Hills think that by talking about coarse subjects and swearing, Eliza was using a new, fashionable type of slang. Pickering tries to support this assumption by declaring that he can no longer distinguish high society from a ship's forecastle now that people swear so often. Clara declares the "new slang" charming--and to her mother's horror, she herself uses the British curse word "bloody." Mrs. Higgins invites the smitten Freddy back to spend more time with Eliza. The Eynsford Hills exit. Mrs. Higgins scolds the men, declaring that their project with Eliza, while clever, cannot work because no skill in pronunciation or fancy dresses can change the subject matter of what Eliza talks about. The content will trump the style; she will always give herself away. Like Mrs. Pearce, she also disapproves of the fact that Eliza lives in the house with the two men. Moreover, she complains that Pickering and Higgins are treating her like a "live doll." The men protest that they take Eliza very seriously and are quite taken with her talents, including the fact that she has a wonderful ear and has taught herself to play the piano. Mrs. Higgins reminds them of the problem they have not yet faced--what to do with Eliza after the experiment is over--and the men reply that they will set her up in some sort of genteel occupation. They exit, talking about how they will take Eliza to a Shakespeare exhibition and then have her mimic all of the people there when they get home. Mrs. Higgins resumes writing letters and exclaims, "men!!" with exasperation.

