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