well: I'll wipe them in my hair in
future.

MRS. PEARCE. I hope you're not offended, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS [shocked at finding himself thought capable of an unamiable
sentiment] Not at all, not at all. You're quite right, Mrs. Pearce: I
shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you
brought from abroad? I really can't put her back into her old things.

HIGGINS. Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. That's all. [She goes out].

HIGGINS. You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary
ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man. I've never
been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous, like other chaps. And
yet she's firmly persuaded that I'm an arbitrary overbearing bossing
kind of person. I can't account for it.

Mrs. Pearce returns.

MRS. PEARCE. If you please, sir, the trouble's beginning already.
There's a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you. He
says you have his daughter here.

PICKERING [rising] Phew! I say! [He retreats to the hearthrug].

HIGGINS [promptly] Send the blackguard up.

MRS. PEARCE. Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out].

PICKERING. He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.

HIGGINS. Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard.

PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some trouble
with him.

HIGGINS [confidently] Oh no: I think not. If there's any trouble he
shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get something
interesting out of him.

PICKERING. About the girl?

HIGGINS. No. I mean his dialect.

PICKERING. Oh!

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Doolittle, sir. [She admits Doolittle and
retires].

Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the
costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim covering
his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather interesting
features, and seems equally free from fear and conscience. He has a
remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to
his feelings without reserve. His present pose is that of wounded honor
and stern resolution.

DOOLITTLE [at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is his
man] Professor Higgins?

HIGGINS. Here. Good morning. Sit down.

DOOLITTLE. Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come about
a very serious matter, Governor.

HIGGINS [to Pickering] Brought up in H