UNIT 4 STAGE AND SCREEN The fl ower girl: Higgins:


[coming back to him, triumphant] Now you’re talking! I thought you’d come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night. [Confi dentially] You’d had a drop in, hadn’t you?


[peremptorily] Sit down.


The fl ower girl: Oh, if you’re going to make a compliment of it – Higgins:


[thundering at her] Sit down. Mrs Pearce: [severely] Sit down, girl. Do as you’re told.


The fl ower girl: Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo! [She stands, half rebellious, half-bewildered]. Pickering:


The fl ower girl: Higgins:


[very courteous] Won’t you sit down? [He places the stray chair near the hearthrug between himself and Higgins].


[coyly] Don’t mind if I do. [She sits down. Pickering returns to the hearthrug]. What’s your name?


The fl ower girl: Liza Doolittle. Higgins:


[declaiming gravely]


Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess. They went to the woods to get a bird’s nes’:


Pickering: Higgins:


They found a nest with four eggs in it: They took one apiece, and left three in it.


They laugh heartily at their own fun. Liza:


Oh, don’t be silly.


Mrs Pearce: Liza:


Higgins: Liza:


[placing herself behind Eliza’s chair] You mustn’t speak to the gentleman like that. Well, why won’t he speak sensible to me?


Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?


Oh, I know what’s right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteen pence an hour from a real French gentleman. Well, you wouldn’t have the face to ask me the same for teaching me my own language as you would for French; so I won’t give more than a shilling. Take it or leave it.


Higgins:


[walking up and down the room, rattling his keys and his cash in his pockets] You know, Pickering, if you consider a shilling, not as a simple shilling, but as a percentage of this girl’s income, it works out as fully equivalent to sixty or seventy guineas from a millionaire.


Pickering: Higgins: Liza:


Higgins: Liza:


Higgins: Liza:


Mrs Pearce: How so?


Figure it out. A millionaire has about £150 a day. She earns about half-a-crown. [haughtily] Who told you I only –


[continuing] She offers me two-fi fths of her day’s income for a lesson. Two-fi fths of a millionaire’s income for a day would be somewhere about £60. It’s handsome. By George, it’s enormous! it’s the biggest offer I ever had.


[rising, terrifi ed] Sixty pounds! What are you talking about? I never offered you sixty pounds. Where would I get –


Hold your tongue. [weeping] But I ain’t got sixty pounds. Oh – Don’t cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going to touch your money. 183


peremptorily: with arrogance, or in a self- assured way


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