George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

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 sport-
ing whistle.
THE FLOWER GIRL 
[still preoccupied with her wounded
feelings] He’s no right to take away my character. My charac-
ter 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 be-
fore? 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.

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15
Shaw
THE NOTE TAKER 
[helpfully] Hanwell.
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER 
[affecting great distinc-
tion 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 hear-
ing]. 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 de-
testable 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.

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16
Pygmalion
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 lan-
guage 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