George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

down again carelessly].
DOOLITTLE
. Yes: he’s dead; and I’m done for. Now did
you or did you not write a letter to him to say that the most
original moralist at present in England, to the best of your
knowledge, was Alfred Doolittle, a common dustman.
HIGGINS
. Oh, after your last visit I remember making some
silly joke of the kind.
DOOLITTLE
. Ah! you may well call it a silly joke. It put the
lid on me right enough. Just give him the chance he wanted to
show that Americans is not like us: that they recognize and
respect merit in every class of life, however humble. Them
words is in his blooming will, in which, Henry Higgins, thanks
to your silly joking, he leaves me a share in his Pre-digested
Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year on condition that I
lecture for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as
often as they ask me up to six times a year.
HIGGINS
. The devil he does! Whew! [Brightening suddenly]
What a lark!
PICKERING
. A safe thing for you, Doolittle. They won’t
ask you twice.
DOOLITTLE
. It ain’t the lecturing I mind. I’ll lecture them
blue in the face, I will, and not turn a hair. It’s making a
gentleman of me that I object to. Who asked him to make a
gentleman of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty
nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same as I
touched you, Henry Higgins. Now I am worrited; tied neck
and heels; and everybody touches me for money. It’s a fine
thing for you, says my solicitor. Is it? says I. You mean it’s a

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Pygmalion
good thing for you, I says. When I was a poor man and had
a solicitor once when they found a pram in the dust cart, he
got me off, and got shut of me and got me shut of him as
quick as he could. Same with the doctors: used to shove me
out of the hospital before I could hardly stand on my legs,
and nothing to pay. Now they finds out that I’m not a healthy
man and can’t live unless they looks after me twice a day. In
the house I’m not let do a hand’s turn for myself: somebody
else must do it and touch me for it. A year ago I hadn’t a
relative in the world except two or three that wouldn’t speak
to me. Now I’ve fifty, and not a decent week’s wages among
the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for myself:
that’s middle class morality. You talk of losing Eliza. Don’t
you be anxious: I bet she’s on my doorstep by this: she that
could support herself easy by selling flowers if I wasn’t re-
spectable. And the next one to touch me will be you, Henry
Higgins. I’ll have to learn to speak middle class language
from you, instead of speaking proper English. That’s where
you’ll come in; and I daresay that’s what you done it for.
MRS. HIGGINS
. But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not
suffer all this if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force
you to accept this bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn’t that so,
Colonel Pickering?
PICKERING
. I believe so.
DOOLITTLE 
[softening his manner in deference to her sex]
That’s the tragedy of it, ma’am. It’s easy to say chuck it; but
I haven’t the nerve. Which one of us has? We’re all intimi-
dated. Intimidated, ma’am: that’s what we are. What is there
for me if I chuck it but the workhouse in my old age? I have
to dye my hair already to keep my job as a dustman. If I was
one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit, I could
chuck it; but then why should I, acause the deserving poor
might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever
has. They don’t know what happiness is. But I, as one of the
undeserving poor, have nothing between me and the pauper’s
uniform but this here blasted three thousand a year that shoves
me into the middle class. (Excuse the expression, ma’am:
you’d use it yourself if you had my provocation). They’ve got
you every way you turn: it’s a choice between the Skilly of
the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class; and I
haven’t the nerve for the workhouse. Intimidated: that’s what
I am. Broke. Bought up. Happier men than me will call for
my dust, and touch me for their tip; and I’ll look on help-
less, and envy them. And that’s what your son has brought
me to. [He is overcome by emotion].
MRS. HIGGINS
. Well, I’m very glad you’re not going to do
anything foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the problem
of Eliza’s future. You can provide for her now.
DOOLITTLE 
[with melancholy resignation] Yes, ma’am; I’m

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Shaw
expected to provide for everyone now, out of three thousand
a year.
HIGGINS 
[jumping up] Nonsense! he can’t provide for her.
He shan’t provide for her. She doesn’t belong to him. I paid
him five pounds for her. Doolittle: either you’re an honest
man or a rogue.
DOOLITTLE 
[tolerantly] A little of both, Henry, like the
rest of us: a little of both.
HIGGINS
. Well, you took that money for the girl; and you
have no right to take her as well.
MRS. HIGGINS
. Henry: don’t be absurd. If you really want
to know where Eliza is, she is upstairs.
HIGGINS 
[amazed] Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch
her downstairs. [He makes resolutely for the door].
MRS. HIGGINS 
[rising and following him] Be quiet, Henry.
Sit down.
HIGGINS
. I—
MRS. HIGGINS
. Sit down, dear; and listen to me.
HIGGINS
. Oh very well, very well, very well. [He throws