be cut off as a warning to other
presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall have a
present of seven-and-sixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop.
If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl;
and the angels will weep for you. [To Pickering] Now are you satisfied,
Pickering? [To Mrs. Pearce] Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs.
Pearce?

MRS. PEARCE [patiently] I think you'd better let me speak to the girl
properly in private. I don't know that I can take charge of her or
consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you don't mean her
any harm; but when you get what you call interested in people's
accents, you never think or care what may happen to them or you. Come
with me, Eliza.

HIGGINS. That's all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off to
the bath-room.

LIZA [rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You're a great bully, you
are. I won't stay here if I don't like. I won't let nobody wallop me. I
never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn't. I was never in trouble
with the police, not me. I'm a good girl--

MRS. PEARCE. Don't answer back, girl. You don't understand the
gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the way to the door, and holds it
open for Eliza].

LIZA [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I won't go near the
king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off. If I'd known what I was
letting myself in for, I wouldn't have come here. I always been a good
girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don't owe him
nothing; and I don't care; and I won't be put upon; and I have my
feelings the same as anyone else--

Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza's plaints are no longer audible.
Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits astride it with
his arms on the back.

PICKERING. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good
character where women are concerned?

HIGGINS [moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where women
are concerned?

PICKERING. Yes: very frequently.

HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level of the
piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven't. I find that
the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous,
exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I
let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical.
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that