Eliza's-First Pronunciation Lesson

Act 2

(...)

There seems to be some curiosity as to what Higgins's lessons were like. Well, here is a sample: the first one. Picture Eliza in her new clothes, and feeling her inside put out of step by a lunch, dinner and breakfast of a kind to which it is unaccustomed, seated with Higgins and the Colonel in the study, feeling like a hospital out-patient at a first encounter with the doctors, Higgins, constitutionally unable to sit still, discomposes her still more by striding restlessly about. But for the reassuring presence and quietude of her friend the Colonel she would run for her life⁵, even back to Drury Lane.

 

Higgins: Say your alphabet.

Eliza: I know my alphabet. Do you think I know nothing? I dont need to be taught like a child.

Higgins: (thundering) Say your alphabet.

Pickering: Say it, Miss Doolittle. You will understand presently. Do what he tells you; and let him teach you in his own way.

Eliza: Oh well, if you put it like that - Ahyee, bayee, cayee, dayee -

Higgins: (with the roar of a wounded lion) Stop. Listen to this, Pickering. This is what we pay for as elementary education. This unfortunate animal has been locked up for nine years in school at our expense to teach her   to speak and read the language of Shakespeare and Milton. And the result is Ahyee, Ba-yee, Ca-yee, Da-yee. (To Eliza) Say A, B, C, D.

Eliza: (almost in tears) But I'm saying it. Ahyee, Ba-yee, Co-yee -

Higgins: Stop. Say a cup of tea.

Eliza: A cappata-ee.

Higgins: Put your tongue forward until it squeezes against the top of your lower teeth. Now say 'cup'.

Eliza: C-c-c -1 cant. C-cup.

Pickering: Good. Splendid, Miss Doolittle.

Higgins: By Jupiter, she's done it at the first shot. Pickering: we shall make a duchess of her. (To Eliza) Now do you think you could possibly say tea? Not ta-yce, mind: if you ever say ba-yee ca-yee da-yee again you shall be dragged round the room three times by the hair of your head. (Fortissimo) T,T,T,T.

Eliza: (weeping) I can’t hear no difference that it sounds more genteel like when you say it.

Higgins: Weil, if you can hear that difference, what the devil are you crying for? Pickering: give her a chocolate.

 Pickering: No, no. Never mind crying a little, Miss Doolittle: you are doing very well; and the lessons won’t hurt. I promise you I won’t let him drag you round the room by your hair.

 Higgins: Be off with you to Mrs Pearce and tell her about it. Think about it. Try to do it by yourself: and keep your tongue well forward in your mouth instead of trying to roll it up and swallow it. Another lesson at half-past four this afternoon. Away with you.

 

Herbert George Wells

“The Cholera Bacillus”

 Part I

A young man was visiting a famous bacteriologist. He had brought a letter of recommendation from an old friend of the scien­tist. So the famous bacteriologist was glad to show the visitor his laboratory.

‘This slide,” said the scientist, putting a small piece of glass under the microscope, “has a preparation of the famous Bacillus of cholera.”

The visitor put his eye to the microscope.

“Oh, I see them!” he said. “They are so small. And yet, these little bacteria could kill the whole population of any great city Wonderful!”

He stood up. Then he took the slide from under the microscope and held it in his hand.

“Are they dangerous now?” he asked.

“No, they aren’t,” said the scientist. “They have been killed already. We must kill all of them in the world.”

“I don’t suppose,” the young man said, “that you like to have such things about you when they are alive?”

“Why not? We must have them,” said the bacteriologist. “Here, for example—” He took up one of several test tubes on his writing- table. “Here is the living thing, the living; cholera bacteria. Only open it and put the bacteria into a reservoir of drinking water and: death will come upon a great city. Many people will die.”

The young man’s eyes shone.

“Those anarchists,” said he, “use bombs when this kind of thing would be much better.”

At that moment the door was opened by the bacteriologist’s wife. “Just a minute, dear,” she said. “You’re wanted on the tele­phone.”

When the scientist came back to the laboratory his visitor was looking at his watch.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I cannot stay a moment longer. I must meet some people.”                                                                                     

The Cholera Bacillus

Part II                                                                  

When the young man saw the bacteriologist running after him, he said something to the cabman and their cab went faster. In a moment the cab and the bacteriologist in his cab behind it dis­appeared round the corner.

Minnie stood at the window for a minute¹ or two. She could understand nothing at all, especially why her husband was running about London in his socks.

Then she quickly put on her hat, took her husband’s shoes, went into the hall, took down his hat and light coat from the hall- stand, went into the street and called a cab.

“Drive me up the road,” she said to the cabman, “and see if we can find a gentleman in a brown jacket and no hat”

“Brown jacket, madam, and no hat. Very good, madam.” Suddenly Minnie’s cabman shouted: “There h$ is, madam, in that open cab, and he is driving very fast! In front of him there’s an­other cab, and it’s going still faster.”

“Good,” said Minnie, “follow them till they stop.”

People walking along the street were surprised at seeing three cabs racing one after the other.

In the first there was a tall, thin young mart folding something small in his hand. In the second there was a hatless gentleman who seemed very excited. In the third there was a lady with a gentle­man’s hat in one hand and a pair of gentleman’s shoes in the other.

The young man in the first cab was also very excited. He sat thinking what he was going to do. No anarchist before him had ever done the thing he was going to do: to break a test-tube of cholera bacteria into a reservoir to kill the population of London.

“The world will hear of me at last,” he thought. “I shall teach them a good lesson. Death, death, death to them all!”

He was very proud of himself: how well he had planned the whole thing: forged the letter of recommendation and got into the laboratory.

He looked out of the cab. The bacteriologist was only fifty yards behind. The anarchist gave the cabman some money and told him to drive still faster.

At this moment the cab turned suddenly and the test-tube broke in his hand. Half of it fell on the floor of the cab. The young man saw two or three drops of the cholera cultivation on his hand. “Well, I suppose I shall be the first to die from cholera.”

He looked down at the broken test-tube lying on the floor of the cab. A little drop was still in the end of it, and he drank it to make sure. It was better to make sure.

 

Then the young man told the cabman to stop. He got out. The other two cabs stopped too.

When the anarchist saw the bacteriologist sitting in his cab, he greeted him with a laugh.

“Long live anarchy! You are too late, my friend. I have drunk it. Good-bye!” With these words the anarchist walked away.

While watching him the bacteriologist did not see his wife at first, who was standing with his hat and shoes and the coat.

“Very good of you to bring my things/’ he said to his wife, still looking at the figure of the anarchist disappearing among the crowd in the street. Then he remembered something and laughed.

“You see,” he said to his wife, “that man came to my laboratory to see me with a letter of recommendation from an old friend of mine. Not knowing that he was an anarchist, I showed him a test- tube of dead cholera bacteria. From his reaction I guessed that he was an anarchist. I wanted to surprise him. So I took up a culti­vation of those bacteria that turns animals blue. I don’t know why I did it... I said it was living cholera bacteria. And he decided to run away with it and kill all the people in London. Then he drank it. Of course, I cannot say what will be the end of it all, but you

 “A very strange young man,” the bacteriologist said to himself. “Why was he so interested in those cholera bacteria?”

Then he turned quickly to his writing-table. A few seconds later he ran to the door.

“Minnie!” he shouted in the hall.

“Yes, dear?” answered his wife.

“Had I anything in my hand when I spoke to you, dear, just now?”

“Nothing, dear, I remember very well.”

Without saying a word, the bacteriologist ran to the front door and out of his house into the street.

Minnie ran to the window. Down the street she saw a young man getting into a cab. The bacteriologist, hatless, and in his slippers, was running and gesticulating. One slipper came off, but he did not stop to put it on. A passing cab stopped and he jumped into it shouting to the cabman to follow the cab in front.