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.