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 a