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Pygmalion | Act I, Act I - Page 3

THE SARCASTIC ONE:
[amazed] Well, who said I didn't? Bly me! You know everything, you do.
THE FLOWER GIRL:
[still nursing her sense of injury] Ain't no call to meddle with me, he ain't.
THE BYSTANDER:
[to her] Of course he ain't. Don't you stand it from him. [To the note taker] See here: what call have you to know about people what never offered to meddle with you? Where's your warrant?
SEVERAL BYSTANDERS:
[encouraged by this seeming point of law] Yes: where's your warrant?
THE FLOWER GIRL:
Let him say what he likes. I don't want to have no truck with him.
THE BYSTANDER:
You take us for dirt under your feet, don't 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?
THE NOTE TAKER:
I've 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] 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!
  • [slang] a member of the upper class
  • improperly forward or bold
  • boisterously
  • an accent
  • abominable; despicable; loathsome; repugnant
  • singing, humming softly
  • ill-humored
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