![]() ![]() As they are about to leave together to discuss their mutual interests, Eliza interrupts with a plea for money saying, "I'm short for my lodging." Higgins reminds her she is lying because she had previously said that she could change a half-a-crown nevertheless, he throws her a mess of coins which she excitedly scoops up, accompanied by all sorts of unintelligible Cockney sounds.Īt this point, Freddy Eynsford-Hill returns with a cab, but doesn't know what to do with it since everyone has left. It turns out that Pickering came to England to meet Higgins, and that Higgins was about to embark on a journey to India to meet Pickering. When the elderly gentleman identifies himself as a "student of Indian dialects," by the name of Colonel Pickering, author of Spoken Sanskrit, Higgins then introduces himself as Henry Higgins, author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet. While he explains his profession, Eliza continually makes unutterable, horrible sounds, even though Higgins constantly tells her to cease making these "detestable" noises he then brags that "in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party." (In the next act, the time is "six months, three if she has a good ear.") When the gentleman inquires about the notetaker's talents, he discloses that he is a student of phonetics in fact, his profession is teaching wealthy people who aspire to climb the social ladder to speak properly. Eynsford-Hill complains about the weather, the notetaker (Higgins) points out that the rain has stopped, and everyone disperses except the gentleman (Colonel Pickering) and the flower girl (Eliza). ![]() He can even identify their locality inside the city of London. It is an exact Cockney phonetic rendition of her own speech patterns.Īt this point, the elderly gentleman (Colonel Pickering) and others take the girl's side, and as the group begins to talk to the notetaker, he (Professor Higgins) begins to identify where each of the speakers was born and where they live. Eliza wants to see what he has written, and when she can't read the "shorthand," he reads off what he has written. Frightened that she might be accused of soliciting for immoral purposes, Eliza loudly maintains her right to sell flowers "if I keep off the kerb." Her loud and continual protestation attracts everyone's attention until finally the notetaker (Professor Henry Higgins) tells her to "shut up." He resents the fact that she mistakes him for a policeman or a spy for the police. Suddenly, a bystander warns the flower girl to be careful because there is a stranger who is taking down everything she says. Eliza immediately tries to sell him some flowers, but he refuses because he has nothing smaller than a "sovereign." Eliza badgers him by insisting that she can change a large coin. Eynsford-Hill pays the girl generously and then learns that Eliza merely calls all strangers either Freddy or Charlie.Īt this moment, "an elderly gentleman of the amiable military type" rushes in for shelter. The flower girl (Liza or Eliza) asks, first, if the lady will pay for the flowers that Freddy just ruined, and against Clara's objections, Mrs. ![]() Eynsford-Hill, who has heard the entire episode, is consumed with curiosity as to how this low-class, badly dressed ragamuffin with such a dreadful accent could possibly know her son well enough to call him by his first name. She then sits and begins to rearrange her flowers, mumbling to herself about the carelessness of such people who knock others about. In a heavy, almost incomprehensible, Cockney accent, she familiarly calls him by his name (Freddy) and tells him to watch where he is going. ![]() When he suddenly returns with the announcement that there is not a cab to be had for love nor money, they reprimand him for not trying other places and quickly send him off to try again in another direction.Īs Freddy reopens his umbrella and dashes off, he accidentally collides with a flower girl, who is hurrying for shelter, and knocks over her basket of flowers. Eynsford-Hill is complaining to her daughter Clara that her son Freddy has been gone an intolerably long time in search of a cab. All types and levels of society are huddled here to avoid the rain. Paul's Church during a heavy summer rain immediately after a theatrical performance has let out. Act I opens in Covent Garden under the portico of St. ![]()
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