THE FLOWER GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in
mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head]
Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!

THE NOTE TAKER [whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound! [He
writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels
exactly] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo!

THE FLOWER GIRL [tickled by the performance, and laughing in
spite of herself] Garn!

THE NOTE TAKER. You see this creature with her kerbstone English:
the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her
days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a
duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a
place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better
English. That's the sort of thing I do for commercial
millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific
work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.

THE GENTLEMAN. I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and--

THE NOTE TAKER [eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering,
the author of Spoken Sanscrit?

THE GENTLEMAN. I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?

THE NOTE TAKER. Henry Higgins, author of Higgins's Universal
Alphabet.