u16_eumaeus.xml

<div type="episode" n="16">
<p><lb n="160001"/>Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk
<lb n="160002"/>of the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him
<lb n="160003"/>up generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed.
<lb n="160004"/>His (Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a
<lb n="160005"/>bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr
<lb n="160006"/>Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water
<lb n="160007"/>available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an
<lb n="160008"/>expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's shelter,
<lb n="160009"/>as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they
<lb n="160010"/>might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a
<lb n="160011"/>mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather
<lb n="160012"/>nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take
<lb n="160013"/>some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during
<lb n="160014"/>which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale
<lb n="160015"/>in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance
<lb n="160016"/>of some description which would answer in their then condition, both of
<lb n="160017"/>them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was
<lb n="160018"/>such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a few such preliminaries as
<lb n="160019"/>brushing, in spite of his having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy
<lb n="160020"/>handkerchief after it had done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both
<lb n="160021"/>walked together along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the
<lb n="160022"/>farrier's and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the
<lb n="160023"/>corner of Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence
<lb n="160024"/>debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But as
<lb n="160025"/>he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire
<lb n="160026"/>anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some
<lb n="160027"/>fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was no
<lb n="160028"/>symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was
<lb n="160029"/>anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a
<lb n="160030"/>kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice.</p>
<p><lb n="160031"/>This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it,
<lb n="160032"/>evidently there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot
<lb n="160033"/>it which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the
<lb n="160034"/>Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the
<lb n="160035"/>direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped
<lb n="160036"/>by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary
<lb n="160037"/>the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though, entering
<lb n="160038"/>thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the
<lb n="160039"/>mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it
<lb n="160040"/>happened, and the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent
<lb n="160041"/>visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty
<lb n="160042"/>vehicle was waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin
<lb n="160043"/>United Tramways Company's sandstrewer happened to be returning and
<lb n="160044"/>the elder man recounted to his companion <foreign xml:lang="fr">à propos</foreign> of the incident his own
<lb n="160045"/>truly miraculous escape of some little while back. They passed the main
<lb n="160046"/>entrance of the Great Northern railway station, the starting point for
<lb n="160047"/>Belfast, where of course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and
<lb n="160048"/>passing the backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say
<lb n="160049"/>gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the Dock
<lb n="160050"/>Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its
<lb n="160051"/>C division police station. Between this point and the high at present unlit
<lb n="160052"/>warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen,
<lb n="160053"/>associated with Baird's the stonecutter's in his mind somehow in Talbot
<lb n="160054"/>place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as his <foreign xml:lang="la">fidus
<lb n="160055"/>Achates</foreign> inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city
<lb n="160056"/>bakery, situated quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour
<lb n="160057"/>indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and
<lb n="160058"/>most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where
<lb n="160059"/>is fancy bread, at Rourke's the baker's it is said.</p>
<p><lb n="160060"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">En route</foreign> to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not yet
<lb n="160061"/>perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete
<lb n="160062"/>possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a
<lb n="160063"/>word of caution <foreign xml:lang="la">re</foreign> the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and swell
<lb n="160064"/>mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not as a
<lb n="160065"/>habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young
<lb n="160066"/>fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under
<lb n="160067"/>the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency
<lb n="160068"/>as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if
<lb n="160069"/>you didn't look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of
<lb n="160070"/>Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for that man
<lb n="160071"/>in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the <foreign xml:lang="fr">finis</foreign> might have been that he
<lb n="160072"/>might have been a candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the
<lb n="160073"/>bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he
<lb n="160074"/>being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which
<lb n="160075"/>simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he
<lb n="160076"/>mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially
<lb n="160077"/>disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as
<lb n="160078"/>Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil
<lb n="160079"/>street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot
<lb n="160080"/>when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the
<lb n="160081"/>guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they
<lb n="160082"/>were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was
<lb n="160083"/>equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go
<lb n="160084"/>off at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians
<lb n="160085"/>should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away your
<lb n="160086"/>time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character besides
<lb n="160087"/>which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the <foreign xml:lang="fr">demimonde</foreign> ran
<lb n="160088"/>away with a lot of £. s. d. into the bargain and the greatest danger of all was
<lb n="160089"/>who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed question of
<lb n="160090"/>stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as both
<lb n="160091"/>nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues (notably a
<lb n="160092"/>good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a
<lb n="160093"/>certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble all
<lb n="160094"/>round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others
<lb n="160095"/>practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen
<lb n="160096"/>by all his pubhunting <foreign xml:lang="fr">confrères</foreign> but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on
<lb n="160097"/>the part of his brother medicos under all the circs.
<lb n="160098"/><said who="sd">―And that one was Judas,</said> Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing
<lb n="160099"/>whatsoever of any kind.</p>
<p><lb n="160100"/>Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the
<lb n="160101"/>back of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a
<lb n="160102"/>brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one
<lb n="160103"/>attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped
<lb n="160104"/>for no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the
<lb n="160105"/>light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of
<lb n="160106"/>the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to
<lb n="160107"/>remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having
<lb n="160108"/>happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered that
<lb n="160109"/>he recognised in the sentry a <foreign xml:lang="la">quondam</foreign> friend of his father's, Gumley. To
<lb n="160110"/>avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge.
<lb n="160111"/><said who="lb">―Someone saluted you,</said> Mr Bloom said.</p>
<p><lb n="160112"/>A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches
<lb n="160113"/>saluted again, calling:
<lb n="160114"/><said who="cor">―Night!</said></p>
<p><lb n="160115"/>Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the
<lb n="160116"/>compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch
<lb n="160117"/>as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but
<lb n="160118"/>nevertheless remained on the <foreign xml:lang="fr">qui vive</foreign> with just a shade of anxiety though
<lb n="160119"/>not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that
<lb n="160120"/>it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing
<lb n="160121"/>to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable
<lb n="160122"/>pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside
<lb n="160123"/>the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category
<lb n="160124"/>they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp
<lb n="160125"/>with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's notice,
<lb n="160126"/>your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and
<lb n="160127"/>garrotted.</p>
<p><lb n="160128"/>Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
<lb n="160129"/>though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley's breath
<lb n="160130"/>redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him and his
<lb n="160131"/>genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of inspector
<lb n="160132"/>Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a certain
<lb n="160133"/>Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather
<lb n="160134"/>Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of a publican
<lb n="160135"/>there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it
<lb n="160136"/>(though not proved) that she descended from the house of the lords Talbot
<lb n="160137"/>de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of
<lb n="160138"/>its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or some relative, a
<lb n="160139"/>woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed the distinction of
<lb n="160140"/>being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore was the reason why the
<lb n="160141"/>still comparatively young though dissolute man who now addressed
<lb n="160142"/>Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John
<lb n="160143"/>Corley.</p>
<p><lb n="160144"/>Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
<lb n="160145"/>Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends had
<lb n="160146"/>all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called him to
<lb n="160147"/>Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other
<lb n="160148"/>uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to
<lb n="160149"/>tell him where on God's earth he could get something, anything at all, to do.
<lb n="160150"/>No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was
<lb n="160151"/>fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected through the
<lb n="160152"/>mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same time if the
<lb n="160153"/>whole thing wasn't a complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he
<lb n="160154"/>was all in.
<lb n="160155"/><said who="cor">―I wouldn't ask you only,</said> pursued he, <said who="cor">on my solemn oath and God knows
<lb n="160156"/>I'm on the rocks.</said>
<lb n="160157"/><said who="sd">―There'll be a job tomorrow or next day,</said> Stephen told him, <said who="sd">in a boys'
<lb n="160158"/>school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You may
<lb n="160159"/>mention my name.</said>
<lb n="160160"/><said who="cor">―Ah, God,</said> Corley replied, <said who="cor">sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I was
<lb n="160161"/>never one of your bright ones,</said> he added with a half laugh. <said who="cor">I got stuck twice
<lb n="160162"/>in the junior at the christian brothers.</said>
<lb n="160163"/><said who="sd">―I have no place to sleep myself,</said> Stephen informed him.</p>
<p><lb n="160164"/>Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to
<lb n="160165"/>do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart off
<lb n="160166"/>the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney's,
<lb n="160167"/>but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M'Conachie told
<lb n="160168"/>him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern
<lb n="160169"/>street (which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar
<lb n="160170"/>Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he hadn't said a word about
<lb n="160171"/>it.</p>
<p><lb n="160172"/>Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
<lb n="160173"/>still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew that
<lb n="160174"/>Corley's brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly deserving
<lb n="160175"/>of much credence. However <foreign xml:lang="la">haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco
<lb n="160176"/>etcetera</foreign> as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got
<lb n="160177"/>paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was
<lb n="160178"/>the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the
<lb n="160179"/>wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would
<lb n="160180"/>get it out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing
<lb n="160181"/>to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket
<lb n="160182"/>anyhow not with the idea of finding any food there but thinking he might
<lb n="160183"/>lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all
<lb n="160184"/>events and get sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his
<lb n="160185"/>chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result
<lb n="160186"/>of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment
<lb n="160187"/>whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in that
<lb n="160188"/>contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He
<lb n="160189"/>was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried
<lb n="160190"/>to recollect. About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave
<lb n="160191"/>them he wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket
<lb n="160192"/>he came across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously
<lb n="160193"/>however, as it turned out.
<lb n="160194"/><said who="cor">―Those are halfcrowns, man,</said> Corley corrected him.</p>
<p><lb n="160195"/>And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent
<lb n="160196"/>him one of them.
<lb n="160197"/><said who="cor">―Thanks,</said> Corley answered, <said who="cor">you're a gentleman. I'll pay you back one
<lb n="160198"/>time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in
<lb n="160199"/>Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good word
<lb n="160200"/>for us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only the girl in
<lb n="160201"/>the office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you've
<lb n="160202"/>to book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don't give a
<lb n="160203"/>shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a crossing sweeper.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160204"/>Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and
<lb n="160205"/>six he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags
<lb n="160206"/>Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the
<lb n="160207"/>shipchandler's, bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle's
<lb n="160208"/>back with O'Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe.
<lb n="160209"/>Anyhow he was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk
<lb n="160210"/>and disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.</p>
<p><lb n="160211"/>Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
<lb n="160212"/>cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation
<lb n="160213"/>watchman's sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was
<lb n="160214"/>having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private
<lb n="160215"/>account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and
<lb n="160216"/>then at Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he
<lb n="160217"/>had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a
<lb n="160218"/>position to truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a
<lb n="160219"/>levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd
<lb n="160220"/>observation he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy
<lb n="160221"/>wearing apparel generally testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he
<lb n="160222"/>was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question
<lb n="160223"/>of one preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put
<lb n="160224"/>it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street chanced
<lb n="160225"/>to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine
<lb n="160226"/>would be a very <foreign xml:lang="la">rara avis</foreign> altogether. In any case he had a consummate
<lb n="160227"/>amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or
<lb n="160228"/>morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.</p>
<p><lb n="160229"/>The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with
<lb n="160230"/>his practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
<lb n="160231"/>blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said,
<lb n="160232"/>laughingly, Stephen, that is:
<lb n="160233"/><said who="sd">―He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
<lb n="160234"/>Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160235"/>At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
<lb n="160236"/>Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
<lb n="160237"/>direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
<lb n="160238"/>moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair,
<lb n="160239"/>whereupon he observed evasively:
<lb n="160240"/><said who="lb">―Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it
<lb n="160241"/>his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much did
<lb n="160242"/>you part with,</said> he queried, <said who="lb">if I am not too inquisitive?</said>
<lb n="160243"/><said who="sd">―Half a crown,</said> Stephen responded. <said who="sd">I daresay he needs it to sleep
<lb n="160244"/>somewhere.</said>
<lb n="160245"/><said who="lb">―Needs!</said> Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
<lb n="160246"/>intelligence, <said who="lb">I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably
<lb n="160247"/>does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according to his deeds.
<lb n="160248"/>But, talking about things in general, where,</said> added he with a smile, <said who="lb">will you
<lb n="160249"/>sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of the question. And even
<lb n="160250"/>supposing you did you won't get in after what occurred at Westland Row
<lb n="160251"/>station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don't mean to presume to dictate
<lb n="160252"/>to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's house?</said>
<lb n="160253"/><said who="sd">―To seek misfortune,</said> was Stephen's answer.
<lb n="160254"/><said who="lb">―I met your respected father on a recent occasion,</said> Mr Bloom
<lb n="160255"/>diplomatically returned, <said who="lb">today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on
<lb n="160256"/>yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
<lb n="160257"/>conversation that he had moved.</said>
<lb n="160258"/><said who="sd">―I believe he is in Dublin somewhere,</said> Stephen answered unconcernedly.
<said who="sd"><lb n="160259"/>Why?</said>
<lb n="160260"/><said who="lb">―A gifted man,</said> Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, <said who="lb">in more respects than
<lb n="160261"/>one and a born <foreign xml:lang="fr">raconteur</foreign> if ever there was one. He takes great pride, quite
<lb n="160262"/>legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps,</said> he hasarded, still
<lb n="160263"/>thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it
<lb n="160264"/>was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that English
<lb n="160265"/>tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion, were
<lb n="160266"/>patently trying as if the whole bally station belonged to them to give
<lb n="160267"/>Stephen the slip in the confusion, which they did.</p>
<p><lb n="160268"/>There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such
<lb n="160269"/>as it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
<lb n="160270"/>family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by the ingle,
<lb n="160271"/>her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that
<lb n="160272"/>was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink it
<lb n="160273"/>with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten at
<lb n="160274"/>two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat
<lb n="160275"/>meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish
<lb n="160276"/>heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in accordance with the third
<lb n="160277"/>precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being
<lb n="160278"/>quarter tense or if not, ember days or something like that.
<lb n="160279"/><said who="lb">―No,</said> Mr Bloom repeated again, <said who="lb">I wouldn't personally repose much trust in
<lb n="160280"/>that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr
<lb n="160281"/>Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your shoes. He
<lb n="160282"/>knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never
<lb n="160283"/>realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn't notice
<lb n="160284"/>as much as I did. But it wouldn't occasion me the least surprise to learn that
<lb n="160285"/>a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some ulterior
<lb n="160286"/>object.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160287"/>He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a
<lb n="160288"/>versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
<lb n="160289"/>rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade
<lb n="160290"/>fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony
<lb n="160291"/>medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to
<lb n="160292"/>which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by
<lb n="160293"/>artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide
<lb n="160294"/>was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he
<lb n="160295"/>could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to
<lb n="160296"/>fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down
<lb n="160297"/>to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
<lb n="160298"/><said who="lb">―Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking
<lb n="160299"/>your brains,</said> he ventured to throw out.</p>
<p><lb n="160300"/>The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by
<lb n="160301"/>friendliness which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of
<lb n="160302"/>features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the problem as
<lb n="160303"/>to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or three
<lb n="160304"/>lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw through the
<lb n="160305"/>affair and for some reason or other best known to himself allowed matters
<lb n="160306"/>to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than
<lb n="160307"/>conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he
<lb n="160308"/>experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.</p>
<p><lb n="160309"/>Adjacent to the men's public urinal they perceived an icecream car
<lb n="160310"/>round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were
<lb n="160311"/>getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a
<lb n="160312"/>particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the
<lb n="160313"/>parties.
<lb n="160314"/><said who="uis">―<foreign xml:lang="it">Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!</foreign></said>
<lb n="160315"/><said who="uis">―<foreign xml:lang="it">Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più</foreign> ....</said>
<lb n="160316"/><said who="uis">―<foreign xml:lang="it">Dice lui, però!</foreign></said>
<lb n="160317"/><said who="uis">―<foreign xml:lang="it">Mezzo.</foreign></said>
<lb n="160318"/><said who="uis">―<foreign xml:lang="it">Farabutto! Mortacci sui!</foreign></said>
<lb n="160319"/><said who="uis">―<foreign xml:lang="it">Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa più</foreign> ...</said></p>
<p><lb n="160320"/>Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an
<lb n="160321"/>unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever
<lb n="160322"/>been before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few
<lb n="160323"/>hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat,
<lb n="160324"/>Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual facts
<lb n="160325"/>which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments
<lb n="160326"/>later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner only to be
<lb n="160327"/>greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and
<lb n="160328"/>strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus <foreign xml:lang="la">homo</foreign> already there
<lb n="160329"/>engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation for whom they
<lb n="160330"/>seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity.
<lb n="160331"/><said who="lb">―Now touching a cup of coffee,</said> Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest to
<lb n="160332"/>break the ice, <said who="lb">it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape of
<lb n="160333"/>solid food, say, a roll of some description.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160334"/>Accordingly his first act was with characteristic <foreign xml:lang="fr">sangfroid</foreign> to order
<lb n="160335"/>these commodities quietly. The <foreign xml:lang="grc-Latn">hoi polloi</foreign> of jarvies or stevedores or
<lb n="160336"/>whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes,
<lb n="160337"/>apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual,
<lb n="160338"/>portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some
<lb n="160339"/>appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor. Mr
<lb n="160340"/>Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just a bowing
<lb n="160341"/>acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be sure, rather in a
<lb n="160342"/>quandary over <foreign xml:lang="it">voglio</foreign>, remarked to his <foreign xml:lang="fr">protégé</foreign> in an audible tone of voice <foreign xml:lang="fr">à
<lb n="160343"/>propos</foreign> of the battle royal in the street which was still raging fast and
<lb n="160344"/>furious:
<lb n="160345"/><said who="lb">―A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not write
<lb n="160346"/>your poetry in that language? <foreign xml:lang="it">Bella Poetria!</foreign> It is so melodious and full.
<lb n="160347"/><foreign xml:lang="it">Belladonna. Voglio.</foreign></said></p>
<p><lb n="160348"/>Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering
<lb n="160349"/>from lassitude generally, replied:
<lb n="160350"/><said who="sd">―To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.</said>
<lb n="160351"/><said who="lb">―Is that so?</said> Mr Bloom asked. <said who="lb">Of course,</said> he subjoined pensively, at the
<lb n="160352"/>inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
<lb n="160353"/>absolutely necessary, <said who="lb">it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160354"/>The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this <foreign xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</foreign> put a boiling
<lb n="160355"/>swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table and a
<lb n="160356"/>rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed. After which he beat
<lb n="160357"/>a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to have a good square look
<lb n="160358"/>at him later on so as not to appear to. For which reason he encouraged
<lb n="160359"/>Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by surreptitiously
<lb n="160360"/>pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be called coffee
<lb n="160361"/>gradually nearer him.
<lb n="160362"/><said who="sd">―Sounds are impostures,</said> Stephen said after a pause of some little time, <said who="sd">like
<lb n="160363"/>names. Cicero, Podmore. Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle.
<lb n="160364"/>Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name?</said>
<lb n="160365"/><said who="lb">―Yes, to be sure,</said> Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. <said who="lb">Of course. Our name
<lb n="160366"/>was changed too,</said> he added, pushing the socalled roll across.</p>
<p><lb n="160367"/>The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers
<lb n="160368"/>boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular,
<lb n="160369"/>squarely by asking:
<lb n="160370"/><said who="dbm">―And what might your name be?</said></p>
<p><lb n="160371"/>Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but
<lb n="160372"/>Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected
<lb n="160373"/>quarter, answered:
<lb n="160374"/><said who="sd">―Dedalus.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160375"/>The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
<lb n="160376"/>rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old
<lb n="160377"/>Hollands and water.
<lb n="160378"/><said who="dbm">―You know Simon Dedalus?</said> he asked at length.
<lb n="160379"/><said who="sd">―I've heard of him,</said> Stephen said.</p>
<p><lb n="160380"/>Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
<lb n="160381"/>eavesdropping too.
<lb n="160382"/><said who="dbm">―He's Irish,</said> the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same way
<lb n="160383"/>and nodding. <said who="dbm">All Irish.</said>
<lb n="160384"/><said who="sd">―All too Irish,</said> Stephen rejoined.</p>
<p><lb n="160385"/>As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
<lb n="160386"/>business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the
<lb n="160387"/>sailor of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the shelter with
<lb n="160388"/>the remark:
<lb n="160389"/><said who="dbm">―I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his shoulder.
<lb n="160390"/>The lefthand dead shot.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160391"/>Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
<lb n="160392"/>gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.
<lb n="160393"/><said who="dbm">―Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles. Cocks
<lb n="160394"/>his gun over his shoulder. Aims.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160395"/>He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then
<lb n="160396"/>he screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the night
<lb n="160397"/>with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
<lb n="160398"/><said who="dbm">―Pom!</said> he then shouted once.</p>
<p><lb n="160399"/>The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
<lb n="160400"/>there being still a further egg.
<lb n="160401"/><said who="dbm">―Pom!</said> he shouted twice.</p>
<p><lb n="160402"/>Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
<lb n="160403"/>bloodthirstily:
<lb n="160404"/><said who="dbm">―<quote>Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,
<lb n="160405"/>Never missed nor he never will.</quote></said></p>
<p><lb n="160406"/>A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like
<lb n="160407"/>asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the Bisley.
<lb n="160408"/><said who="dbm">―Beg pardon,</said> the sailor said.
<lb n="160409"/><said who="lb">―Long ago?</said> Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.
<lb n="160410"/><said who="dbm">―Why,</said> the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic
<lb n="160411"/>influence of diamond cut diamond, <said who="dbm">it might be a matter of ten years. He
<lb n="160412"/>toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in
<lb n="160413"/>Stockholm.</said>
<lb n="160414"/><said who="lb">―Curious coincidence,</said> Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.
<lb n="160415"/><said who="dbm">―Murphy's my name,</said> the sailor continued. <said who="dbm">D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe.
<lb n="160416"/>Know where that is?</said>
<lb n="160417"/><said who="sd">―Queenstown harbour,</said> Stephen replied.
<lb n="160418"/><said who="dbm">―That's right,</said> the sailor said. <said who="dbm">Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's where
<lb n="160419"/>I hails from. I belongs there. That's where I hails from. My little woman's
<lb n="160420"/>down there. She's waiting for me, I know. <quote type="song">For England, home and beauty.</quote>
<lb n="160421"/>She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now, sailing about.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160422"/>Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the
<lb n="160423"/>homecoming to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy
<lb n="160424"/>Jones, a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a
<lb n="160425"/>number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch
<lb n="160426"/>Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc
<lb n="160427"/>O'Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way of poor
<lb n="160428"/>John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way. Never about
<lb n="160429"/>the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The
<lb n="160430"/>face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast
<lb n="160431"/>the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half,
<lb n="160432"/>wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay and
<lb n="160433"/>make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow, at the selfsame fireside.
<lb n="160434"/>Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle
<lb n="160435"/>Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the publican of the Crown and
<lb n="160436"/>Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father.
<lb n="160437"/>Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, <foreign xml:lang="la">postmortem</foreign> child.
<lb n="160438"/>With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to
<lb n="160439"/>the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I remain with much love your
<lb n="160440"/>brokenhearted husband D B Murphy.</p>
<p><lb n="160441"/>The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to
<lb n="160442"/>one of the jarvies with the request:
<lb n="160443"/><said who="dbm">―You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you?</said></p>
<p><lb n="160444"/>The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die
<lb n="160445"/>of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was
<lb n="160446"/>passed from hand to hand.
<lb n="160447"/><said who="dbm">―Thank you,</said> the sailor said.</p>
<p><lb n="160448"/>He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow
<lb n="160449"/>stammers, proceeded:
<lb n="160450"/><said who="dbm">―We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster <name type="ship">Rosevean</name>
<lb n="160451"/>from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this afternoon.
<lb n="160452"/>There's my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160453"/>In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside
<lb n="160454"/>pocket and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded
<lb n="160455"/>document.
<lb n="160456"/><said who="stg">―You must have seen a fair share of the world,</said> the keeper remarked,
<lb n="160457"/>leaning on the counter.
<lb n="160458"/><said who="dbm">―Why,</said> the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, <said who="dbm">I've circumnavigated a
<lb n="160459"/>bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and North
<lb n="160460"/>America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. I seen
<lb n="160461"/>icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, the
<lb n="160462"/>Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever scuttled a
<lb n="160463"/>ship. I seen Russia. <foreign xml:lang="cu">Gospodi pomilyou.</foreign> That's how the Russians prays.</said>
<lb n="160464"/><said who="ujar">―You seen queer sights, don't be talking,</said> put in a jarvey.
<lb n="160465"/><said who="dbm">―Why,</said> the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. <said who="dbm">I seen queer
<lb n="160466"/>things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor
<lb n="160467"/>same as I chew that quid.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160468"/>He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his
<lb n="160469"/>teeth, bit ferociously:
<lb n="160470"/><said who="dbm">―Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and the
<lb n="160471"/>livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent me.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160472"/>He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which
<lb n="160473"/>seemed to be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table.
<lb n="160474"/>The printed matter on it stated: <foreign xml:lang="es">Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia.</foreign></p>
<p><lb n="160475"/>All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage
<lb n="160476"/>women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning,
<lb n="160477"/>sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of
<lb n="160478"/>them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.
<lb n="160479"/><said who="dbm">―Chews coca all day,</said> the communicative tarpaulin added. <said who="dbm">Stomachs like
<lb n="160480"/>breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear no more children.
<lb n="160481"/>See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse's liver raw.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160482"/>His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns
<lb n="160483"/>for several minutes if not more.
<lb n="160484"/><said who="dbm">―Know how to keep them off?</said> he inquired generally.</p>
<p><lb n="160485"/>Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying:
<lb n="160486"/><said who="dbm">―Glass. That boggles 'em. Glass.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160487"/>Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over
<lb n="160488"/>the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran as
<lb n="160489"/>follows: <foreign xml:lang="es">Tarjeta Postal, Señor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, Chile.</foreign>
<lb n="160490"/>There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice.</p>
<p><lb n="160491"/>Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the
<lb n="160492"/>eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the
<lb n="160493"/>Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in <title type="opera">Maritana</title> on which
<lb n="160494"/>occasion the former's ball passed through the latter's hat) having detected a
<lb n="160495"/>discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he represented
<lb n="160496"/>himself to be and not sailing under false colours after having boxed the
<lb n="160497"/>compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the fictitious addressee of the
<lb n="160498"/>missive which made him nourish some suspicions of our friend's <foreign xml:lang="la">bona fides</foreign>
<lb n="160499"/>nevertheless it reminded him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to
<lb n="160500"/>one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London <foreign xml:lang="la">via</foreign>
<lb n="160501"/>long sea not to say that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent
<lb n="160502"/>but he was at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had
<lb n="160503"/>consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead
<lb n="160504"/>which was his longest. Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work
<lb n="160505"/>a pass through Egan but some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up
<lb n="160506"/>with the net result that the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did
<lb n="160507"/>come to planking down the needful and breaking Boyd's heart it was not so
<lb n="160508"/>dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to
<lb n="160509"/>Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back. The
<lb n="160510"/>trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in every
<lb n="160511"/>way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was out of
<lb n="160512"/>order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, Falmouth,
<lb n="160513"/>Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of the sights of
<lb n="160514"/>the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon where doubtless
<lb n="160515"/>he would see the greatest improvement, tower, abbey, wealth of Park lane to
<lb n="160516"/>renew acquaintance with. Another thing just struck him as a by no means
<lb n="160517"/>bad notion was he might have a gaze around on the spot to see about trying
<lb n="160518"/>to make arrangements about a concert tour of summer music embracing the
<lb n="160519"/>most prominent pleasure resorts, Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate
<lb n="160520"/>hydros and spas, Eastbourne, Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful
<lb n="160521"/>Bournemouth, the Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which might
<lb n="160522"/>prove highly remunerative. Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch
<lb n="160523"/>company or local ladies on the job, witness Mrs C P M'Coy type lend me
<lb n="160524"/>your valise and I'll post you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star
<lb n="160525"/>Irish caste, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his own legal
<lb n="160526"/>consort as leading lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes and
<lb n="160527"/>Moody-Manners, perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of
<lb n="160528"/>success, providing puffs in the local papers could be managed by some
<lb n="160529"/>fellow with a bit of bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and thus
<lb n="160530"/>combine business with pleasure. But who? That was the rub.</p>
<p><lb n="160531"/>Also, without being actually positive, it struck him a great field was to
<lb n="160532"/>be opened up in the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with the
<lb n="160533"/>times <foreign xml:lang="fr">apropos</foreign> of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was mooted, was
<lb n="160534"/>once more on the <foreign xml:lang="fr">tapis</foreign> in the circumlocution departments with the usual
<lb n="160535"/>quantity of red tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads
<lb n="160536"/>generally. A great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise
<lb n="160537"/>to meet the travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e.
<lb n="160538"/>Brown, Robinson and Co.</p>
<p><lb n="160539"/>It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no
<lb n="160540"/>small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the
<lb n="160541"/>system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry pounds
<lb n="160542"/>was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead of being
<lb n="160543"/>always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for a
<lb n="160544"/>wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum months of
<lb n="160545"/>it and merited a radical change of <foreign xml:lang="fr">venue</foreign> after the grind of city life in the
<lb n="160546"/>summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her spectacular best
<lb n="160547"/>constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. There were equally
<lb n="160548"/>excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home island, delightful sylvan
<lb n="160549"/>spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well as a bracing
<lb n="160550"/>tonic for the system in and around Dublin and its picturesque environs
<lb n="160551"/>even, Poulaphouca to which there was a steamtram, but also farther away
<lb n="160552"/>from the madding crowd in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland,
<lb n="160553"/>an ideal neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen so long as it didn't come
<lb n="160554"/>down, and in the wilds of Donegal where if report spoke true the <foreign xml:lang="fr">coup d'œil</foreign>
<lb n="160555"/>was exceedingly grand though the lastnamed locality was not easily
<lb n="160556"/>getatable so that the influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be
<lb n="160557"/>considering the signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its
<lb n="160558"/>historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley,
<lb n="160559"/>George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a
<lb n="160560"/>favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring
<lb n="160561"/>when young men's fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off
<lb n="160562"/>the cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left leg, it
<lb n="160563"/>being only about three quarters of an hour's run from the pillar. Because of
<lb n="160564"/>course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely in its infancy, so to
<lb n="160565"/>speak, and the accommodation left much to be desired. Interesting to
<lb n="160566"/>fathom it seemed to him from a motive of curiosity, pure and simple, was
<lb n="160567"/>whether it was the traffic that created the route or viceversa or the two sides
<lb n="160568"/>in fact. He turned back the other side of the card, picture, and passed it
<lb n="160569"/>along to Stephen.
<lb n="160570"/><said who="dbm">―I seen a Chinese one time,</said> related the doughty narrator, <said who="dbm">that had little
<lb n="160571"/>pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and every pill
<lb n="160572"/>was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, another was
<lb n="160573"/>a flower. Cooks rats in your soup,</said> he appetisingly added, <said who="dbm">the chinks does.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160574"/>Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the
<lb n="160575"/>globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures.
<lb n="160576"/><said who="dbm">―And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his back.
<lb n="160577"/>Knife like that.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160578"/>Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in
<lb n="160579"/>keeping with his character and held it in the striking position.
<lb n="160580"/><said who="dbm">―In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers. Fellow
<lb n="160581"/>hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. <said who="ui" rend="italics">Prepare to meet your
<lb n="160582"/>God</said>, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160583"/>His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further
<lb n="160584"/>questions even should they by any chance want to.
<lb n="160585"/><said who="dbm">―That's a good bit of steel,</said> repeated he, examining his formidable <foreign xml:lang="it">stiletto</foreign>.</p>
<p><lb n="160586"/>After which harrowing <foreign xml:lang="fr">dénouement</foreign> sufficient to appal the stoutest he
<lb n="160587"/>snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in
<lb n="160588"/>his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.
<lb n="160589"/><said who="usom">―They're great for the cold steel,</said> somebody who was evidently quite in the
<lb n="160590"/>dark said for the benefit of them all. <said who="usom">That was why they thought the park
<lb n="160591"/>murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them using
<lb n="160592"/>knives.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160593"/>At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of <emph>where ignorance is
<lb n="160594"/>bliss</emph> Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both instinctively
<lb n="160595"/>exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the strictly <foreign xml:lang="fr">entre nous</foreign>
<lb n="160596"/>variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, <foreign xml:lang="la">alias</foreign> the keeper, not
<lb n="160597"/>turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair. His
<lb n="160598"/>inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself,
<lb n="160599"/>beggaring description, conveyed the impression that he didn't understand
<lb n="160600"/>one jot of what was going on. Funny, very!</p>
<p><lb n="160601"/>There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits
<lb n="160602"/>and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the
<lb n="160603"/>natives <foreign xml:lang="es">choza de</foreign>, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he
<lb n="160604"/>was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly
<lb n="160605"/>recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday,
<lb n="160606"/>roughly some score of years previously in the days of the land troubles,
<lb n="160607"/>when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the
<lb n="160608"/>eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen.
<lb n="160609"/><said who="dbm">―Ay, boss,</said> the sailor broke in. <said who="dbm">Give us back them papers.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160610"/>The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape.
<lb n="160611"/><said who="lb">―Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar?</said> Mr Bloom inquired.</p>
<p><lb n="160612"/>The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay
<lb n="160613"/>or no.
<lb n="160614"/><said who="lb">―Ah, you've touched there too,</said> Mr Bloom said, <said who="lb">Europa point,</said> thinking he
<lb n="160615"/>had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but he
<lb n="160616"/>failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust, and shook
<lb n="160617"/>his head with a sort of lazy scorn.
<lb n="160618"/><said who="lb">―What year would that be about?</said> Mr B interrogated. <said who="lb">Can you recall the
<lb n="160619"/>boats?</said></p>
<p><lb n="160620"/>Our <foreign xml:lang="fr">soi-disant</foreign> sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before
<lb n="160621"/>answering:
<lb n="160622"/><said who="dbm">―I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea,</said> he said, <said who="dbm">and boats and ships. Salt
<lb n="160623"/>junk all the time.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160624"/>Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not
<lb n="160625"/>likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell to
<lb n="160626"/>woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe,
<lb n="160627"/>suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, it covered fully
<lb n="160628"/>three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly what it meant to rule the
<lb n="160629"/>waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen at the lowest, near the North
<lb n="160630"/>Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a superannuated old salt, evidently
<lb n="160631"/>derelict, seated habitually near the not particularly redolent sea on the wall,
<lb n="160632"/>staring quite obliviously at it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and
<lb n="160633"/>pastures new as someone somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why.
<lb n="160634"/>Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and
<lb n="160635"/>down the antipodes and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not
<lb n="160636"/>exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was
<lb n="160637"/>really no secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the <foreign xml:lang="la">minutiae</foreign>
<lb n="160638"/>of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its
<lb n="160639"/>glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it
<lb n="160640"/>and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to show how people
<lb n="160641"/>usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell
<lb n="160642"/>idea and the lottery and insurance which were run on identically the same
<lb n="160643"/>lines so that for that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a highly
<lb n="160644"/>laudable institution to which the public at large, no matter where living
<lb n="160645"/>inland or seaside, as the case might be, having it brought home to them like
<lb n="160646"/>that should extend its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard
<lb n="160647"/>service who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements
<lb n="160648"/>whatever the season when duty called <emph>Ireland expects that every man</emph> and so
<lb n="160649"/>on and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting
<lb n="160650"/>the Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding
<lb n="160651"/>which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy,
<lb n="160652"/>not to say stormy, weather.
<lb n="160653"/><said who="dbm">―There was a fellow sailed with me in the <name type="ship">Rover</name>,</said> the old seadog, himself a
<lb n="160654"/>rover, proceeded, <said who="dbm">went ashore and took up a soft job as gentleman's valet at
<lb n="160655"/>six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and he gave me an
<lb n="160656"/>oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, shaving and brushup. I
<lb n="160657"/>hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, run off to sea and his
<lb n="160658"/>mother got him took in a draper's in Cork where he could be drawing easy
<lb n="160659"/>money.</said>
<lb n="160660"/><said who="uhc">―What age is he?</said> queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the side,
<lb n="160661"/>bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away from
<lb n="160662"/>the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy getup and a
<lb n="160663"/>strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage.
<lb n="160664"/><said who="dbm">―Why,</said> the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, <said who="dbm">my son, Danny?
<lb n="160665"/>He'd be about eighteen now, way I figure it.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160666"/>The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean
<lb n="160667"/>anyhow shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which
<lb n="160668"/>was to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent
<lb n="160669"/>an anchor.
<lb n="160670"/><said who="dbm">―There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater,</said> he remarked, <said who="dbm">sure as nuts. I
<lb n="160671"/>must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It's them black lads I objects to. I
<lb n="160672"/>hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160673"/>Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged
<lb n="160674"/>his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the
<lb n="160675"/>mariner's hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a young
<lb n="160676"/>man's sideface looking frowningly rather.
<lb n="160677"/><said who="dbm">―Tattoo,</said> the exhibitor explained. <said who="dbm">That was done when we were lying
<lb n="160678"/>becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the
<lb n="160679"/>name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek.</said>
<lb n="160680"/><said who="uq">―Did it hurt much doing it?</said> one asked the sailor.</p>
<p><lb n="160681"/>That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the.
<lb n="160682"/>Someway in his. Squeezing or.
<lb n="160683"/><said who="dbm">―See here,</said> he said, showing Antonio. <said who="dbm">There he is cursing the mate. And
<lb n="160684"/>there he is now,</said> he added, <said who="dbm">the same fellow,</said> pulling the skin with his fingers,
<lb n="160685"/>some special knack evidently, <said who="dbm">and he laughing at a yarn.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160686"/>And in point of fact the young man named Antonio's livid face did
<lb n="160687"/>actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the
<lb n="160688"/>unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, who this
<lb n="160689"/>time stretched over.
<lb n="160690"/><said who="dbm">―Ay, ay,</said> sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. <said who="dbm">He's gone
<lb n="160691"/>too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160692"/>He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression
<lb n="160693"/>of before.
<lb n="160694"/><said who="ul">―Neat bit of work,</said> one longshoreman said.
<lb n="160695"/><said who="ul2">―And what's the number for?</said> loafer number two queried.
<lb n="160696"/><said who="ul3">―Eaten alive?</said> a third asked the sailor.
<lb n="160697"/><said who="dbm">―Ay, ay,</said> sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this time with
<lb n="160698"/>some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the direction of the
<lb n="160699"/>questioner about the number. <said who="dbm">Ate. A Greek he was.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160700"/>And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his
<lb n="160701"/>alleged end:
<lb n="160702"/><said who="dbm">―<emph>As bad as old Antonio,
<lb n="160703"/>For he left me on my ownio.</emph></said></p>
<p><lb n="160704"/>The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw
<lb n="160705"/>hat peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on
<lb n="160706"/>her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr Bloom,
<lb n="160707"/>scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment
<lb n="160708"/>flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink sheet
<lb n="160709"/>of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had laid aside,
<lb n="160710"/>he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though why pink. His
<lb n="160711"/>reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment round the door the
<lb n="160712"/>same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that afternoon on Ormond
<lb n="160713"/>quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the lane who knew the lady in
<lb n="160714"/>the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.) and begged the chance of his
<lb n="160715"/>washing. Also why washing which seemed rather vague than not, your
<lb n="160716"/>washing. Still candour compelled him to admit he had washed his wife's
<lb n="160717"/>undergarments when soiled in Holles street and women would and did too
<lb n="160718"/>a man's similar garments initialled with Bewley and Draper's marking ink
<lb n="160719"/>(hers were, that is) if they really loved him, that is to say, love me, love my
<lb n="160720"/>dirty shirt. Still just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female's
<lb n="160721"/>room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper
<lb n="160722"/>made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the <title type="newspaper">Evening
<lb n="160723"/>Telegraph</title> he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the
<lb n="160724"/>door with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly
<lb n="160725"/>all there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round
<lb n="160726"/>skipper Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more of her.
<lb n="160727"/><said who="stg">―The gunboat,</said> the keeper said.
<lb n="160728"/><said who="lb">―It beats me,</said> Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, <said who="lb">medically I am speaking, how
<lb n="160729"/>a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with disease
<lb n="160730"/>can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober senses, if he
<lb n="160731"/>values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of course I suppose
<lb n="160732"/>some man is ultimately responsible for her condition. Still no matter what
<lb n="160733"/>the cause is from ....</said></p>
<p><lb n="160734"/>Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely
<lb n="160735"/>remarking:
<lb n="160736"/><said who="sd">―In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a roaring
<lb n="160737"/>trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul.
<lb n="160738"/>She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160739"/>The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a
<lb n="160740"/>prude, said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a
<lb n="160741"/>stop to <emph>instanter</emph> to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from any
<lb n="160742"/>oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, were not
<lb n="160743"/>licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, he could
<lb n="160744"/>truthfully state, he, as a <foreign xml:lang="la">paterfamilias</foreign>, was a stalwart advocate of from the
<lb n="160745"/>very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of the sort, he said, and
<lb n="160746"/>ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody
<lb n="160747"/>concerned.
<lb n="160748"/><said who="lb">―You as a good catholic,</said> he observed, <said who="lb">talking of body and soul, believe in
<lb n="160749"/>the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, as
<lb n="160750"/>distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I believe in
<lb n="160751"/>that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the
<lb n="160752"/>convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such
<lb n="160753"/>inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you?</said></p>
<p><lb n="160754"/>Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory
<lb n="160755"/>to try and concentrate and remember before he could say:
<lb n="160756"/><said who="sd">―They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and therefore
<lb n="160757"/>incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the possibility of
<lb n="160758"/>its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I can hear, is quite capable
<lb n="160759"/>of adding that to the number of His other practical jokes, <foreign xml:lang="la">corruptio per se</foreign>
<lb n="160760"/>and <foreign xml:lang="la">corruptio per accidens</foreign> both being excluded by court etiquette.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160761"/>Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the
<lb n="160762"/>mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still he felt
<lb n="160763"/>bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly rejoining:
<lb n="160764"/><said who="lb">―Simple? I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you,
<lb n="160765"/>to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a blue moon.
<lb n="160766"/>But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for instance to invent
<lb n="160767"/>those rays Röntgen did or the telescope like Edison, though I believe it was
<lb n="160768"/>before his time Galileo was the man, I mean, and the same applies to the
<lb n="160769"/>laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as electricity
<lb n="160770"/>but it's a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in the existence of
<lb n="160771"/>a supernatural God.</said>
<lb n="160772"/><said who="sd">―O that,</said> Stephen expostulated, <said who="sd">has been proved conclusively by several of
<lb n="160773"/>the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial evidence.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160774"/>On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they
<lb n="160775"/>were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in
<lb n="160776"/>their respective ages, clashed.
<lb n="160777"/><said who="lb">―Has been?</said> the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his
<lb n="160778"/>original point with a smile of unbelief. <said who="lb">I'm not so sure about that. That's a
<lb n="160779"/>matter for everyman's opinion and, without dragging in the sectarian side
<lb n="160780"/>of the business, I beg to differ with you <foreign xml:lang="la">in toto</foreign> there. My belief is, to tell you
<lb n="160781"/>the candid truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by
<lb n="160782"/>monks most probably or it's the big question of our national poet over
<lb n="160783"/>again, who precisely wrote them like <title type="play">Hamlet</title> and Bacon, as, you who know
<lb n="160784"/>your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't
<lb n="160785"/>you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that
<lb n="160786"/>bun. It's like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still no-one can give
<lb n="160787"/>what he hasn't got. Try a bit.</said>
<lb n="160788"/><said who="sd">―Couldn't,</said> Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the moment
<lb n="160789"/>refusing to dictate further.</p>
<p><lb n="160790"/>Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to
<lb n="160791"/>stir or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with something
<lb n="160792"/>approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and
<lb n="160793"/>lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or nay
<lb n="160794"/>did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in run on
<lb n="160795"/>teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings and useful
<lb n="160796"/>lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower orders. On the
<lb n="160797"/>other hand he had a distinct and painful recollection they paid his wife,
<lb n="160798"/>Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently associated with it at
<lb n="160799"/>one time, a very modest remuneration indeed for her pianoplaying. The
<lb n="160800"/>idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was to do good and net a profit,
<lb n="160801"/>there being no competition to speak of. Sulphate of copper poison SO₣., or
<lb n="160802"/>something in some dried peas he remembered reading of in a cheap
<lb n="160803"/>eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't remember when it was or where.
<lb n="160804"/>Anyhow inspection, medical inspection, of all eatables seemed to him more
<lb n="160805"/>than ever necessary which possibly accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble's
<lb n="160806"/>Vi-Cocoa on account of the medical analysis involved.
<lb n="160807"/><said who="lb">―Have a shot at it now,</said> he ventured to say of the coffee after being stirred.</p>
<p><lb n="160808"/>Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug
<lb n="160809"/>from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and
<lb n="160810"/>took a sip of the offending beverage.
<lb n="160811"/><said who="lb">―Still it's solid food,</said> his good genius urged, <said who="lb">I'm a stickler for solid food,</said>
<lb n="160812"/>his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but regular
<lb n="160813"/>meals as the <foreign xml:lang="la">sine qua non</foreign> for any kind of proper work, mental or manual.
<said who="lb"><lb n="160814"/>You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different man.</said>
<lb n="160815"/><said who="sd">―Liquids I can eat,</said> Stephen said. <said who="sd">But O, oblige me by taking away that
<lb n="160816"/>knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160817"/>Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated
<lb n="160818"/>article, a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly
<lb n="160819"/>Roman or antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the
<lb n="160820"/>least conspicuous point about it.
<lb n="160821"/><said who="lb">―Our mutual friend's stories are like himself,</said> Mr Bloom <foreign xml:lang="fr">apropos</foreign> of knives
<lb n="160822"/>remarked to his <emph>confidante</emph> <foreign xml:lang="it">sotto voce</foreign>. <said who="lb">Do you think they are genuine? He
<lb n="160823"/>could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and lie like old boots.
<lb n="160824"/>Look at him.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160825"/>Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was full
<lb n="160826"/>of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was quite
<lb n="160827"/>within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication though
<lb n="160828"/>at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all the spoof he got
<lb n="160829"/>off his chest being strictly accurate gospel.</p>
<p><lb n="160830"/>He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him
<lb n="160831"/>and Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though
<lb n="160832"/>a wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, there
<lb n="160833"/>was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail delivery
<lb n="160834"/>and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a
<lb n="160835"/>weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might
<lb n="160836"/>even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, as people
<lb n="160837"/>often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself and had served
<lb n="160838"/>his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say nothing of the
<lb n="160839"/>Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage of identical name
<lb n="160840"/>who sprang from the pen of our national poet) who expiated his crimes in
<lb n="160841"/>the melodramatic manner above described. On the other hand he might be
<lb n="160842"/>only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because meeting unmistakable mugs,
<lb n="160843"/>Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting news from abroad would tempt
<lb n="160844"/>any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about
<lb n="160845"/>the schooner <name type="ship">Hesperus</name> and etcetera. And when all was said and done the
<lb n="160846"/>lies a fellow told about himself couldn't probably hold a proverbial candle
<lb n="160847"/>to the wholesale whoppers other fellows coined about him.
<lb n="160848"/><said who="lb">―Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention,</said> he resumed.
<said who="lb"><lb n="160849"/>Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, though
<lb n="160850"/>that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the midget queen. In
<lb n="160851"/>those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some Aztecs, as they are
<lb n="160852"/>called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn't straighten their legs if you paid
<lb n="160853"/>them because the muscles here, you see,</said> he proceeded, indicating on his
<lb n="160854"/>companion the brief outline of the sinews or whatever you like to call them
<lb n="160855"/>behind the right knee, <said who="lb">were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long
<lb n="160856"/>cramped up, being adored as gods. There's an example again of simple
<lb n="160857"/>souls.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160858"/>However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures
<lb n="160859"/>(who reminded him a bit of Ludwig, <foreign xml:lang="la">alias</foreign> Ledwidge, when he occupied the
<lb n="160860"/>boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the
<lb n="160861"/>management in the <title type="opera">Flying Dutchman</title>, a stupendous success, and his host of
<lb n="160862"/>admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him
<lb n="160863"/>though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually fell a
<lb n="160864"/>bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically incompatible about
<lb n="160865"/>it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the back touch was quite in
<lb n="160866"/>keeping with those italianos though candidly he was none the less free to
<lb n="160867"/>admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish way not to mention the chip
<lb n="160868"/>potato variety and so forth over in little Italy there near the Coombe were
<lb n="160869"/>sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to
<lb n="160870"/>pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others
<lb n="160871"/>at night so as to have a good old succulent tuckin with garlic <foreign xml:lang="fr">de rigueur</foreign> off
<lb n="160872"/>him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.
<lb n="160873"/><said who="lb">―Spaniards, for instance,</said> he continued, <said who="lb">passionate temperaments like that,
<lb n="160874"/>impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own hands
<lb n="160875"/>and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in
<lb n="160876"/>the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. My wife is, so
<lb n="160877"/>to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could actually claim
<lb n="160878"/>Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in (technically) Spain,
<lb n="160879"/>i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite dark, regular brunette, black.
<lb n="160880"/>I for one certainly believe climate accounts for character. That's why I
<lb n="160881"/>asked you if you wrote your poetry in Italian.</said>
<lb n="160882"/><said who="sd">―The temperaments at the door,</said> Stephen interposed with, <said who="sd">were very
<lb n="160883"/>passionate about ten shillings. <foreign xml:lang="it">Roberto ruba roba sua.</foreign></said>
<lb n="160884"/><said who="lb">―Quite so,</said> Mr Bloom dittoed.
<lb n="160885"/><said who="sd">―Then,</said> Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown
<lb n="160886"/>listener somewhere, <said who="sd">we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles
<lb n="160887"/>triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san Tommaso
<lb n="160888"/>Mastino.</said>
<lb n="160889"/><said who="lb">―It's in the blood,</said> Mr Bloom acceded at once. <said who="lb">All are washed in the blood
<lb n="160890"/>of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare street museum
<lb n="160891"/>today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call it, and I was just looking
<lb n="160892"/>at those antique statues there. The splendid proportions of hips, bosom.
<lb n="160893"/>You simply don't knock against those kind of women here. An exception
<lb n="160894"/>here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a way you find but what I'm
<lb n="160895"/>talking about is the female form. Besides they have so little taste in dress,
<lb n="160896"/>most of them, which greatly enhances a woman's natural beauty, no matter
<lb n="160897"/>what you say. Rumpled stockings, it may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but
<lb n="160898"/>still it's a thing I simply hate to see.</said></p>
<p><lb n="160899"/>Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then
<lb n="160900"/>the others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog,
<lb n="160901"/>collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course had his
<lb n="160902"/>own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and weathered a
<lb n="160903"/>monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all those perils of
<lb n="160904"/>the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him or words to that
<lb n="160905"/>effect, a pious medal he had that saved him.</p>
<p><lb n="160906"/>So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt's rock, wreck
<lb n="160907"/>of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for the
<lb n="160908"/>moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell
<lb n="160909"/>remembered it <name type="ship">Palme</name> on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of the town
<lb n="160910"/>that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original verse of
<lb n="160911"/>distinctive merit on the topic for the <title type="newspaper">Irish Times</title>), breakers running over
<lb n="160912"/>her and crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion petrified with
<lb n="160913"/>horror. Then someone said something about the case of the s. s. <name type="ship">Lady
<lb n="160914"/>Cairns</name> of Swansea run into by the <name type="ship">Mona</name> which was on an opposite tack in
<lb n="160915"/>rather muggyish weather and lost with all hands on deck. No aid was given.
<lb n="160916"/>Her master, the <name type="ship">Mona</name>'s, said he was afraid his collision bulkhead would
<lb n="160917"/>give way. She had no water, it appears, in her hold.</p>
<p><lb n="160918"/>At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for
<lb n="160919"/>him to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat.
<lb n="160920"/><said who="dbm">―Let me cross your bows mate,</said> he said to his neighbour who was just
<lb n="160921"/>gently dropping off into a peaceful doze.</p>
<p><lb n="160922"/>He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the
<lb n="160923"/>door, stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and
<lb n="160924"/>bore due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who
<lb n="160925"/>noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's rum
<lb n="160926"/>sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning
<lb n="160927"/>interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and, applying
<lb n="160928"/>its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of it with a
<lb n="160929"/>gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a shrewd suspicion
<lb n="160930"/>that the old stager went out on a manoeuvre after the counterattraction in
<lb n="160931"/>the shape of a female who however had disappeared to all intents and
<lb n="160932"/>purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when duly refreshed by his
<lb n="160933"/>rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and girders of the Loop line
<lb n="160934"/>rather out of his depth as of course it was all radically altered since his last
<lb n="160935"/>visit and greatly improved. Some person or persons invisible directed him to
<lb n="160936"/>the male urinal erected by the cleansing committee all over the place for the
<lb n="160937"/>purpose but after a brief space of time during which silence reigned
<lb n="160938"/>supreme the sailor, evidently giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at
<lb n="160939"/>hand, the noise of his bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on
<lb n="160940"/>the ground where it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof
<lb n="160941"/>scooped anyway for new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly
<lb n="160942"/>disturbed in his sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the
<lb n="160943"/>corporation stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up,
<lb n="160944"/>was none other in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically
<lb n="160945"/>on the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human
<lb n="160946"/>probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about
<lb n="160947"/>and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms of
<lb n="160948"/>Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent form on a
<lb n="160949"/>fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent home
<lb n="160950"/>comforts all his life who came in for a cool £100 a year at one time which of
<lb n="160951"/>course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make general ducks and drakes
<lb n="160952"/>of. And there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the
<lb n="160953"/>town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver. He drank needless to be told
<lb n="160954"/>and it pointed only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in a
<lb n="160955"/>large way of business if – a big if, however – he had contrived to cure
<lb n="160956"/>himself of his particular partiality.</p>
<p><lb n="160957"/>All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping,
<lb n="160958"/>coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same
<lb n="160959"/>thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin, the
<lb n="160960"/>only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no ships
<lb n="160961"/>ever called.</p>
<p><lb n="160962"/>There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently
<lb n="160963"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">au fait</foreign>.</p>
<p><lb n="160964"/>What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the
<lb n="160965"/>only rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by
<lb n="160966"/>a Mr Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he
<lb n="160967"/>advised them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that
<lb n="160968"/>day's work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line.
<lb n="160969"/><said who="stg">―Am I right, skipper?</said> he queried of the sailor, now returning after his
<lb n="160970"/>private potation and the rest of his exertions.</p>
<p><lb n="160971"/>That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words
<lb n="160972"/>growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other
<lb n="160973"/>in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate the
<lb n="160974"/>plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the time
<lb n="160975"/>being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found
<lb n="160976"/>it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in he rolled after his
<lb n="160977"/>successful libation-<foreign xml:lang="la">cum</foreign>-potation, introducing an atmosphere of drink into
<lb n="160978"/>the <foreign xml:lang="fr">soirée</foreign>, boisterously trolling, like a veritable son of a seacook:
<lb n="160979"/><said who="dbm">―<emph>The biscuits was as hard as brass
<lb n="160980"/>And the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse.
<lb n="160981"/>O, Johnny Lever!
<lb n="160982"/>Johnny Lever, O!</emph></said></p>
<p><lb n="160983"/>After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the
<lb n="160984"/>scene and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form
<lb n="160985"/>provided. Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to
<lb n="160986"/>grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent the
<lb n="160987"/>natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he described in
<lb n="160988"/>his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on the face of God's
<lb n="160989"/>earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in large quantities, six
<lb n="160990"/>million pounds worth of pork exported every year, ten millions between
<lb n="160991"/>butter and eggs and all the riches drained out of it by England levying taxes
<lb n="160992"/>on the poor people that paid through the nose always and gobbling up the
<lb n="160993"/>best meat in the market and a lot more surplus steam in the same vein. Their
<lb n="160994"/>conversation accordingly became general and all agreed that that was a
<lb n="160995"/>fact. You could grow any mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was
<lb n="160996"/>that colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would
<lb n="160997"/>you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated
<lb n="160998"/><foreign xml:lang="it">crescendo</foreign> with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the
<lb n="160999"/>conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on
<lb n="161000"/>account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history.
<lb n="161001"/>The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he
<lb n="161002"/>affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England
<lb n="161003"/>was toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel,
<lb n="161004"/>which he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the
<lb n="161005"/>Greek hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he completely gripped
<lb n="161006"/>their attention by showing the tendon referred to on his boot. His advice to
<lb n="161007"/>every Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work for Ireland
<lb n="161008"/>and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of
<lb n="161009"/>her sons.</p>
<p><lb n="161010"/>Silence all round marked the termination of his <foreign xml:lang="it">finale</foreign>. The
<lb n="161011"/>impervious navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed.
<lb n="161012"/><said who="dbm">―Take a bit of doing, boss,</said> retaliated that rough diamond palpably a bit
<lb n="161013"/>peeved in response to the foregoing truism.</p>
<p><lb n="161014"/>To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper
<lb n="161015"/>concurred but nevertheless held to his main view.
<lb n="161016"/><said who="dbm">―Who's the best troops in the army?</said> the grizzled old veteran irately
<lb n="161017"/>interrogated. <said who="dbm">And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and
<lb n="161018"/>generals we've got? Tell me that.</said>
<lb n="161019"/><said who="uhc">―The Irish, for choice,</said> retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial blemishes
<lb n="161020"/>apart.
<lb n="161021"/><said who="dbm">―That's right,</said> the old tarpaulin corroborated. <said who="dbm">The Irish catholic peasant.
<lb n="161022"/>He's the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins?</said></p>
<p><lb n="161023"/>While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper
<lb n="161024"/>added he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no
<lb n="161025"/>Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few
<lb n="161026"/>irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing to the
<lb n="161027"/>listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long as they
<lb n="161028"/>didn't indulge in recriminations and come to blows.</p>
<p><lb n="161029"/>From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom
<lb n="161030"/>was rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash
<lb n="161031"/>for, pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he
<lb n="161032"/>was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel,
<lb n="161033"/>unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather concealed
<lb n="161034"/>their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea
<lb n="161035"/>in certain quarters that in a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister
<lb n="161036"/>island would be played out and if, as time went on, that turned out to be
<lb n="161037"/>how the cat jumped all he could personally say on the matter was that as a
<lb n="161038"/>host of contingencies, equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it
<lb n="161039"/>was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries
<lb n="161040"/>even though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of
<lb n="161041"/>whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish
<lb n="161042"/>soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in fact.
<lb n="161043"/>And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of the
<lb n="161044"/>place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible, and
<lb n="161045"/>the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as being on all fours with
<lb n="161046"/>the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged as the lookeron,
<lb n="161047"/>a student of the human soul if anything, the others seeing least of the game.
<lb n="161048"/>And as for the lessee or keeper, who probably wasn't the other person at all,
<lb n="161049"/>he (B.) couldn't help feeling and most properly it was better to give people
<lb n="161050"/>like that the goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to
<lb n="161051"/>have anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their
<lb n="161052"/>felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming
<lb n="161053"/>forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter
<lb n="161054"/>Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked
<lb n="161055"/>those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such
<lb n="161056"/>criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any shape
<lb n="161057"/>or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly remaining
<lb n="161058"/>what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who had actually
<lb n="161059"/>brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his political convictions
<lb n="161060"/>(though, personally, he would never be a party to any such thing), off the
<lb n="161061"/>same bat as those love vendettas of the south, have her or swing for her,
<lb n="161062"/>when the husband frequently, after some words passed between the two
<lb n="161063"/>concerning her relations with the other lucky mortal (he having had the
<lb n="161064"/>pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on his adored one as a result of an
<lb n="161065"/>alternative postnuptial <foreign xml:lang="fr">liaison</foreign> by plunging his knife into her, until it just
<lb n="161066"/>struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the, merely drove the car for the
<lb n="161067"/>actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably
<lb n="161068"/>informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea
<lb n="161069"/>some legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient
<lb n="161070"/>history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had
<lb n="161071"/>transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally
<lb n="161072"/>or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell positively last
<lb n="161073"/>performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault of course,
<lb n="161074"/>temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping at
<lb n="161075"/>the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that
<lb n="161076"/>Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some £. s. d. in the course of his perambulations
<lb n="161077"/>round the docks in the congenial atmosphere of the <emph>Old Ireland</emph> tavern,
<lb n="161078"/>come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the other he had heard not so
<lb n="161079"/>long before the same identical lingo as he told Stephen how he simply but
<lb n="161080"/>effectually silenced the offender.
<lb n="161081"/><said who="lb">―He took umbrage at something or other,</said> that muchinjured but on the
<lb n="161082"/>whole eventempered person declared, <said who="lb">I let slip. He called me a jew and in a
<lb n="161083"/>heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts in the
<lb n="161084"/>least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his family like
<lb n="161085"/>me though in reality I'm not. That was one for him. A soft answer turns
<lb n="161086"/>away wrath. He hadn't a word to say for himself as everyone saw. Am I not
<lb n="161087"/>right?</said></p>
<p><lb n="161088"/>He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark
<lb n="161089"/>pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed
<lb n="161090"/>to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly.
<lb n="161091"/><said who="sd">―<foreign xml:lang="la">Ex quibus</foreign>,</said> Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or four
<lb n="161092"/>eyes conversing, <said who="sd"><foreign xml:lang="la">Christus</foreign> or Bloom his name is or after all any other,
<lb n="161093"/><foreign xml:lang="la">secundum carnem</foreign>.</said>
<lb n="161094"/><said who="lb">―Of course,</said> Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, <said who="lb">you must look at both sides of
<lb n="161095"/>the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and
<lb n="161096"/>wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is though every
<lb n="161097"/>country, they say, our own distressful included, has the government it
<lb n="161098"/>deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all very fine to boast of
<lb n="161099"/>mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. I resent violence and
<lb n="161100"/>intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops
<lb n="161101"/>anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments plan. It's a patent
<lb n="161102"/>absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner
<lb n="161103"/>and speak another vernacular, in the next house so to speak.</said>
<lb n="161104"/><said who="sd">―Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes' war,</said> Stephen
<lb n="161105"/>assented, <said who="sd">between Skinner's alley and Ormond market.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161106"/>Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that
<lb n="161107"/>was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of
<lb n="161108"/>thing.
<lb n="161109"/><said who="lb">―You just took the words out of my mouth,</said> he said. <said who="lb">A hocuspocus of
<lb n="161110"/>conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn't remotely ....</said></p>
<p><lb n="161111"/>All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad
<lb n="161112"/>blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind,
<lb n="161113"/>erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were
<lb n="161114"/>very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of
<lb n="161115"/>everything greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop.
<lb n="161116"/><said who="lb">―They accuse,</said> remarked he audibly.</p>
<p><lb n="161117"/>He turned away from the others who probably and spoke nearer to,
<lb n="161118"/>so as the others in case they.
<lb n="161119"/><said who="lb">―Jews,</said> he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, <said who="lb">are accused of
<lb n="161120"/>ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would you be
<lb n="161121"/>surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition
<lb n="161122"/>hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an
<lb n="161123"/>uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for,
<lb n="161124"/>imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They
<lb n="161125"/>are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any because
<lb n="161126"/>you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as you are.
<lb n="161127"/>But in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty.
<lb n="161128"/>Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with goahead America. Turks.
<lb n="161129"/>It's in the dogma. Because if they didn't believe they'd go straight to heaven
<lb n="161130"/>when they die they'd try to live better, at least so I think. That's the juggle
<lb n="161131"/>on which the p.p's raise the wind on false pretences. I'm,</said> he resumed with
<lb n="161132"/>dramatic force, <said who="lb">as good an Irishman as that rude person I told you about at
<lb n="161133"/>the outset and I want to see everyone,</said> concluded he, <said who="lb">all creeds and classes
<lb n="161134"/><foreign xml:lang="la">pro rata</foreign> having a comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion
<lb n="161135"/>either, something in the neighbourhood of £300 per annum. That's the vital
<lb n="161136"/>issue at stake and it's feasible and would be provocative of friendlier
<lb n="161137"/>intercourse between man and man. At least that's my idea for what it's
<lb n="161138"/>worth. I call that patriotism. <foreign xml:lang="la">Ubi patria</foreign>, as we learned a smattering of in
<lb n="161139"/>our classical days in <foreign xml:lang="la">Alma Mater</foreign>, <foreign xml:lang="la">vita bene</foreign>. Where you can live well, the
<lb n="161140"/>sense is, if you work.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161141"/>Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this
<lb n="161142"/>synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He
<lb n="161143"/>could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs
<lb n="161144"/>about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of
<lb n="161145"/>different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath
<lb n="161146"/>or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or didn't say the
<lb n="161147"/>words the voice he heard said, if you work.
<lb n="161148"/><said who="sd">―Count me out,</said> he managed to remark, meaning work.</p>
<p><lb n="161149"/>The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person
<lb n="161150"/>who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all
<lb n="161151"/>must work, have to, together.
<lb n="161152"/><said who="lb">―I mean, of course,</said> the other hastened to affirm, <said who="lb">work in the widest
<lb n="161153"/>possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of the thing.
<lb n="161154"/>Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That's
<lb n="161155"/>work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you, after all
<lb n="161156"/>the money expended on your education you are entitled to recoup yourself
<lb n="161157"/>and command your price. You have every bit as much right to live by your
<lb n="161158"/>pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the peasant has. What? You both
<lb n="161159"/>belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important.</said>
<lb n="161160"/><said who="sd">―You suspect,</said> Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, <said who="sd">that I may be
<lb n="161161"/>important because I belong to the <foreign xml:lang="fr">faubourg Saint Patrice</foreign> called Ireland for
<lb n="161162"/>short.</said>
<lb n="161163"/><said who="lb">―I would go a step farther,</said> Mr Bloom insinuated.
<lb n="161164"/><said who="sd">―But I suspect,</said> Stephen interrupted, <said who="sd">that Ireland must be important
<lb n="161165"/>because it belongs to me.</said>
<lb n="161166"/><said who="lb">―What belongs,</said> queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps
<lb n="161167"/>under some misapprehension. <said who="lb">Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the
<lb n="161168"/>latter portion. What was it you ....?</said></p>
<p><lb n="161169"/>Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug
<lb n="161170"/>of coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding:
<lb n="161171"/><said who="sd">―We can't change the country. Let us change the subject.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161172"/>At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked
<lb n="161173"/>down but in a quandary, as he couldn't tell exactly what construction to put
<lb n="161174"/>on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some kind was
<lb n="161175"/>clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of his recent orgy
<lb n="161176"/>spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way foreign to his sober
<lb n="161177"/>state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached the utmost importance
<lb n="161178"/>had not been all that was needful or he hadn't been familiarised with the
<lb n="161179"/>right sort of people. With a touch of fear for the young man beside him
<lb n="161180"/>whom he furtively scrutinised with an air of some consternation
<lb n="161181"/>remembering he had just come back from Paris, the eyes more especially
<lb n="161182"/>reminding him forcibly of father and sister, failing to throw much light on
<lb n="161183"/>the subject, however, he brought to mind instances of cultured fellows that
<lb n="161184"/>promised so brilliantly nipped in the bud of premature decay and nobody to
<lb n="161185"/>blame but themselves. For instance there was the case of O'Callaghan, for
<lb n="161186"/>one, the halfcrazy faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate
<lb n="161187"/>means, with his mad vagaries among whose other gay doings when rotto
<lb n="161188"/>and making himself a nuisance to everybody all round he was in the habit
<lb n="161189"/>of ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then
<lb n="161190"/>the usual <foreign xml:lang="fr">dénouement</foreign> after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got
<lb n="161191"/>landed into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a
<lb n="161192"/>strong hint to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as
<lb n="161193"/>not to be made amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment
<lb n="161194"/>act, certain names of those subpœnaed being handed in but not divulged for
<lb n="161195"/>reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, putting
<lb n="161196"/>two and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to,
<lb n="161197"/>Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was all the
<lb n="161198"/>go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the house of lords because early in
<lb n="161199"/>life the occupant of the throne, then heir apparent, the other members of the
<lb n="161200"/>upper ten and other high personages simply following in the footsteps of the
<lb n="161201"/>head of the state, he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned
<lb n="161202"/>heads running counter to morality such as the Cornwall case a number of
<lb n="161203"/>years before under their veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a
<lb n="161204"/>thing good Mrs Grundy, as the law stands, was terribly down on though
<lb n="161205"/>not for the reason they thought they were probably whatever it was except
<lb n="161206"/>women chiefly who were always fiddling more or less at one another it
<lb n="161207"/>being largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like
<lb n="161208"/>distinctive underclothing should, and every welltailored man must, trying to
<lb n="161209"/>make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine
<lb n="161210"/>filip to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he
<lb n="161211"/>untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at
<lb n="161212"/>ninety degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to
<lb n="161213"/>the original, there were on the other hand others who had forced their way
<lb n="161214"/>to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer force of
<lb n="161215"/>natural genius, that. With brains, sir.</p>
<p><lb n="161216"/>For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even
<lb n="161217"/>to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could not
<lb n="161218"/>exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the bad having in fact
<lb n="161219"/>let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the acquaintance of someone of no
<lb n="161220"/>uncommon calibre who could provide food for reflection would amply
<lb n="161221"/>repay any small. Intellectual stimulation, as such, was, he felt, from time to
<lb n="161222"/>time a firstrate tonic for the mind. Added to which was the coincidence of
<lb n="161223"/>meeting, discussion, dance, row, old salt of the here today and gone
<lb n="161224"/>tomorrow type, night loafers, the whole galaxy of events, all went to make
<lb n="161225"/>up a miniature cameo of the world we live in especially as the lives of the
<lb n="161226"/>submerged tenth, viz. coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much
<lb n="161227"/>under the microscope lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered
<lb n="161228"/>whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr
<lb n="161229"/>Philip Beaufoy if taken down in writing suppose he were to pen something
<lb n="161230"/>out of the common groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one
<lb n="161231"/>guinea per column. <title type="short story">My Experiences</title>, let us say, <title type="sub">in a Cabman's Shelter</title>.</p>
<p><lb n="161232"/>The pink edition extra sporting of the <title type="newspaper">Telegraph</title> tell a graphic lie lay,
<lb n="161233"/>as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling again,
<lb n="161234"/>far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the preceding rebus
<lb n="161235"/>the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin
<lb n="161236"/>find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly over the respective captions
<lb n="161237"/>which came under his special province the allembracing give us this day our
<lb n="161238"/>daily press. First he got a bit of a start but it turned out to be only
<lb n="161239"/>something about somebody named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or
<lb n="161240"/>something like that. Great battle, Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, £200
<lb n="161241"/>damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration Swindle. Letter from His Grace.
<lb n="161242"/>William ✠. Ascot meeting, the Gold Cup. Victory of outsider <name type="horse">Throwaway</name>
<lb n="161243"/>recalls Derby of '92 when Capt. Marshall's dark horse <name type="horse">Sir Hugo</name> captured
<lb n="161244"/>the blue ribband at long odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot
<lb n="161245"/>and Mouth. Funeral of the late Mr Patrick Dignam.</p>
<p><lb n="161246"/>So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he
<lb n="161247"/>reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address anyway.
<lb n="161248"/><said who="lb">―<q rend="italics">This morning</q> (Hynes put it in of course) <q rend="italics">the remains of the late Mr
<lb n="161249"/>Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue,
<lb n="161250"/>Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a
<lb n="161251"/>most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a brief
<lb n="161252"/>illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom he is deeply
<lb n="161253"/>regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the deceased were present,
<lb n="161254"/>were carried out by</q> (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny)
<lb n="161255"/><q rend="italics">Messrs H. J. O'Neill and Son, 164 North Strand Road. The mourners
<lb n="161256"/>included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan (brother-in-law), Jno.
<lb n="161257"/>Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John Power, .)eatondph 1/8 ador
<lb n="161258"/>dorador douradora</q> (must be where he called Monks the dayfather about
<lb n="161259"/>Keyes's ad) <q rend="italics">Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, Stephen Dedalus B. A., Edw.
<lb n="161260"/>J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph M'C Hynes, L. Boom, C P
<lb n="161261"/>M'Coy, – M'Intosh and several others.</q></said></p>
<p><lb n="161262"/>Nettled not a little by L. Boom (as it incorrectly stated) and the line of
<lb n="161263"/>bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M'Coy and
<lb n="161264"/>Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by their total
<lb n="161265"/>absence (to say nothing of M'Intosh) L. Boom pointed it out to his
<lb n="161266"/>companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness, not
<lb n="161267"/>forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints.
<lb n="161268"/><said who="sd">―Is that first epistle to the Hebrews,</said> he asked as soon as his bottom jaw
<lb n="161269"/>would let him, <said who="sd">in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it.</said>
<lb n="161270"/><said who="lb">―It is.</said> Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to the
<lb n="161271"/>archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could be
<lb n="161272"/>no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit
<lb n="161273"/>flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing to. <said who="lb">There.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161274"/>While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the
<lb n="161275"/>nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits
<lb n="161276"/>and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, his
<lb n="161277"/>side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For entire colts and
<lb n="161278"/>fillies. Mr F. Alexander's <name type="horse">Throwaway</name>, b. h. by <name type="horse">Rightaway-Thrale</name>, 5 yrs,
<lb n="161279"/>9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1, lord Howard de Walden's <name type="horse">Zinfandel</name> (M. Cannon)
<lb n="161280"/>2, Mr W. Bass's <name type="horse">Sceptre</name> 3. Betting 5 to 4 on <name type="horse">Zinfandel</name>, 20 to 1 <name type="horse">Throwaway</name>
<lb n="161281"/>(off). <name type="horse">Sceptre</name> a shade heavier, 5 to 4 on <name type="horse">Zinfandel</name>, 20 to 1 <name type="horse">Throwaway</name>
<lb n="161282"/>(off). <name type="horse">Throwaway</name> and <name type="horse">Zinfandel</name> stood close order. It was anybody's race
<lb n="161283"/>then the rank outsider drew to the fore, got long lead, beating lord Howard
<lb n="161284"/>de Walden's chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly <name type="horse">Sceptre</name> on a 2½ mile
<lb n="161285"/>course. Winner trained by Braime so that Lenehan's version of the business
<lb n="161286"/>was all pure buncombe. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs
<lb n="161287"/>with 3000 in specie. Also ran: J de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons
<lb n="161288"/>was anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute)
<lb n="161289"/><name type="horse">Maximum II</name>. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages.
<lb n="161290"/>Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get
<lb n="161291"/>left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as
<lb n="161292"/>the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to congratulate
<lb n="161293"/>himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced itself to
<lb n="161294"/>eventually.
<lb n="161295"/><said who="lb">―There was every indication they would arrive at that,</said> he, Bloom, said.
<lb n="161296"/><said who="sd">―Who?</said> the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said.</p>
<p><lb n="161297"/>One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and
<lb n="161298"/>read: <emph>Return of Parnell</emph>. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was
<lb n="161299"/>in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it was
<lb n="161300"/>killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for a time
<lb n="161301"/>after committee room no 15 until he was his old self again with no-one to
<lb n="161302"/>point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone down on
<lb n="161303"/>their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered his senses.
<lb n="161304"/>Dead he wasn't. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they brought
<lb n="161305"/>over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer general.
<lb n="161306"/>He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on.</p>
<p><lb n="161307"/>All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their
<lb n="161308"/>memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and not
<lb n="161309"/>singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it was
<lb n="161310"/>twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow of
<lb n="161311"/>truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly
<lb n="161312"/>inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in his
<lb n="161313"/>death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when his
<lb n="161314"/>various different political arrangements were nearing completion or
<lb n="161315"/>whether it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to change
<lb n="161316"/>his boots and clothes after a wetting when a cold resulted and failing to
<lb n="161317"/>consult a specialist he being confined to his room till he eventually died of it
<lb n="161318"/>amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at an end or quite possibly
<lb n="161319"/>they were distressed to find the job was taken out of their hands. Of course
<lb n="161320"/>nobody being acquainted with his movements even before there was
<lb n="161321"/>absolutely no clue as to his whereabouts which were decidedly of the <emph>Alice,
<lb n="161322"/>where art thou</emph> order even prior to his starting to go under several aliases
<lb n="161323"/>such as Fox and Stewart so the remark which emanated from friend cabby
<lb n="161324"/>might be within the bounds of possibility. Naturally then it would prey on
<lb n="161325"/>his mind as a born leader of men which undoubtedly he was and a
<lb n="161326"/>commanding figure, a sixfooter or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his
<lb n="161327"/>stockinged feet, whereas Messrs So and So who, though they weren't even a
<lb n="161328"/>patch on the former man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features
<lb n="161329"/>were very few and far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with
<lb n="161330"/>feet of clay, and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him
<lb n="161331"/>with mutual mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had
<lb n="161332"/>to come back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the
<lb n="161333"/>understudy in the title role how to. He saw him once on the auspicious
<lb n="161334"/>occasion when they broke up the type in the <title type="newspaper">Insuppressible</title> or was it <title type="newspaper">United
<lb n="161335"/>Ireland</title>, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, handed him
<lb n="161336"/>his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said <said who="csp" direct="false" rend="italics">Thank you</said>, excited as he
<lb n="161337"/>undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior notwithstanding the little
<lb n="161338"/>misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip: what's bred in the
<lb n="161339"/>bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if they didn't set the
<lb n="161340"/>terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of shillyshally usually
<lb n="161341"/>followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And then, number one, you
<lb n="161342"/>came up against the man in possession and had to produce your credentials
<lb n="161343"/>like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, <name type="ship">Bella</name>
<lb n="161344"/>was the boat's name to the best of his recollection he, the heir, went down in
<lb n="161345"/>as the evidence went to show and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink,
<lb n="161346"/>lord Bellew was it, as he might very easily have picked up the details from
<lb n="161347"/>some pal on board ship and then, when got up to tally with the description
<lb n="161348"/>given, introduce himself with: <emph>Excuse me, my name is So and So</emph> or some
<lb n="161349"/>such commonplace remark. A more prudent course, as Bloom said to the
<lb n="161350"/>not over effusive, in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion
<lb n="161351"/>beside him, would have been to sound the lie of the land first.
<lb n="161352"/><said who="stg">―That bitch, that English whore, did for him,</said> the shebeen proprietor
<lb n="161353"/>commented. <said who="stg">She put the first nail in his coffin.</said>
<lb n="161354"/><said who="uhc">―Fine lump of a woman all the same,</said> the <foreign xml:lang="fr">soi-disant</foreign> townclerk Henry
<lb n="161355"/>Campbell remarked, <said who="uhc">and plenty of her. She loosened many a man's thighs. I
<lb n="161356"/>seen her picture in a barber's. The husband was a captain or an officer.</said>
<lb n="161357"/><said who="stg">―Ay,</said> Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, <said who="stg">he was and a cottonball one.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161358"/>This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a
<lb n="161359"/>fair amount of laughter among his <foreign xml:lang="fr">entourage</foreign>. As regards Bloom he,
<lb n="161360"/>without the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the
<lb n="161361"/>door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary
<lb n="161362"/>interest at the time when the facts, to make matters worse, were made public
<lb n="161363"/>with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them full of sweet
<lb n="161364"/>nothings. First it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened and an
<lb n="161365"/>attachment sprang up between them till bit by bit matters came to a climax
<lb n="161366"/>and the matter became the talk of the town till the staggering blow came as
<lb n="161367"/>a welcome intelligence to not a few evildisposed, however, who were
<lb n="161368"/>resolved upon encompassing his downfall though the thing was public
<lb n="161369"/>property all along though not to anything like the sensational extent that it
<lb n="161370"/>subsequently blossomed into. Since their names were coupled, though, since
<lb n="161371"/>he was her declared favourite, where was the particular necessity to
<lb n="161372"/>proclaim it to the rank and file from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he
<lb n="161373"/>had shared her bedroom which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a
<lb n="161374"/>thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the
<lb n="161375"/>shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a
<lb n="161376"/>particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with
<lb n="161377"/>the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the
<lb n="161378"/>same fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply
<lb n="161379"/>coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was it
<lb n="161380"/>was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch, with nothing
<lb n="161381"/>in common between them beyond the name, and then a real man arriving on
<lb n="161382"/>the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim to her siren
<lb n="161383"/>charms and forgetting home ties, the usual sequel, to bask in the loved one's
<lb n="161384"/>smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped
<lb n="161385"/>up. Can real love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case,
<lb n="161386"/>exist between married folk? Poser. Though it was no concern of theirs
<lb n="161387"/>absolutely if he regarded her with affection, carried away by a wave of
<lb n="161388"/>folly. A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly augmented
<lb n="161389"/>obviously by gifts of a high order, as compared with the other military
<lb n="161390"/>supernumerary that is (who was just the usual everyday <emph>farewell, my
<lb n="161391"/>gallant captain</emph> kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th hussars
<lb n="161392"/>to be accurate) and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the
<lb n="161393"/>other) in his own peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly
<lb n="161394"/>perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair
<lb n="161395"/>to do till the priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile
<lb n="161396"/>staunch adherents, and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done
<lb n="161397"/>yeoman service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on
<lb n="161398"/>their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very
<lb n="161399"/>effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on
<lb n="161400"/>his head much in the same way as the fabled ass's kick. Looking back now
<lb n="161401"/>in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of dream. And
<lb n="161402"/>then coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it went without
<lb n="161403"/>saying you would feel out of place as things always moved with the times.
<lb n="161404"/>Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he had not been in for
<lb n="161405"/>quite a number of years looked different somehow since, as it happened, he
<lb n="161406"/>went to reside on the north side. North or south, however, it was just the
<lb n="161407"/>wellknown case of hot passion, pure and simple, upsetting the applecart
<lb n="161408"/>with a vengeance and just bore out the very thing he was saying as she also
<lb n="161409"/>was Spanish or half so, types that wouldn't do things by halves, passionate
<lb n="161410"/>abandon of the south, casting every shred of decency to the winds.
<lb n="161411"/><said who="lb">―Just bears out what I was saying,</said> he, with glowing bosom said to Stephen,
<said who="lb"><lb n="161412"/>about blood and the sun. And, if I don't greatly mistake she was Spanish
<lb n="161413"/>too.</said>
<lb n="161414"/><said who="sd">―The king of Spain's daughter,</said> Stephen answered, adding something or
<lb n="161415"/>other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and
<lb n="161416"/>the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and
<lb n="161417"/>so many.
<lb n="161418"/><said who="lb">―Was she?</said> Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any
<lb n="161419"/>means, <said who="lb">I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it was
<lb n="161420"/>as she lived there. So, Spain.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161421"/>Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket <title type="book">Sweets of</title>, which reminded
<lb n="161422"/>him by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out his
<lb n="161423"/>pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained rapidly
<lb n="161424"/>finally he.
<lb n="161425"/><said who="lb">―Do you consider, by the by,</said> he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded photo
<lb n="161426"/>which he laid on the table, <said who="lb">that a Spanish type?</said></p>
<p><lb n="161427"/>Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a
<lb n="161428"/>large sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as
<lb n="161429"/>she was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously
<lb n="161430"/>low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than
<lb n="161431"/>vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth, standing near,
<lb n="161432"/>ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which was <title type="song">In Old Madrid</title>, a
<lb n="161433"/>ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her (the lady's) eyes,
<lb n="161434"/>dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about something to be
<lb n="161435"/>admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin's premier photographic
<lb n="161436"/>artist, being responsible for the esthetic execution.
<lb n="161437"/><said who="lb">―Mrs Bloom, my wife the <foreign xml:lang="it">prima donna</foreign> Madam Marion Tweedy,</said> Bloom
<lb n="161438"/>indicated. <said who="lb">Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like her
<lb n="161439"/>then.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161440"/>Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his
<lb n="161441"/>legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major
<lb n="161442"/>Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a
<lb n="161443"/>singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered
<lb n="161444"/>barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking likeness in expression
<lb n="161445"/>but it did not do justice to her figure which came in for a lot of notice
<lb n="161446"/>usually and which did not come out to the best advantage in that getup. She
<lb n="161447"/>could without difficulty, he said, have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell
<lb n="161448"/>on certain opulent curves of the. He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his
<lb n="161449"/>spare time, on the female form in general developmentally because, as it so
<lb n="161450"/>happened, no later than that afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues,
<lb n="161451"/>perfectly developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could
<lb n="161452"/>give the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes,
<lb n="161453"/>puritanisme, it does though Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors
<lb n="161454"/>(Bandez!) Figne toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply wasn't
<lb n="161455"/>art in a word.</p>
<p><lb n="161456"/>The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar's
<lb n="161457"/>good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak
<lb n="161458"/>for itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the beauty for
<lb n="161459"/>himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the camera
<lb n="161460"/>could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional etiquette so.
<lb n="161461"/>Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet wonderfully cool for
<lb n="161462"/>the season considering, for sunshine after storm. And he did feel a kind of
<lb n="161463"/>need there and then to follow suit like a kind of inward voice and satisfy a
<lb n="161464"/>possible need by moving a motion. Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the
<lb n="161465"/>slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear
<lb n="161466"/>however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further
<lb n="161467"/>increasing the other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry
<lb n="161468"/>of heaving <foreign xml:lang="fr">embonpoint</foreign>. In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm
<lb n="161469"/>like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact with
<lb n="161470"/>the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp which
<lb n="161471"/>she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of his because
<lb n="161472"/>he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and the book about
<lb n="161473"/>Ruby with met him pike hoses (<foreign xml:lang="la">sic</foreign>) in it which must have fell down
<lb n="161474"/>sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to
<lb n="161475"/>Lindley Murray.</p>
<p><lb n="161476"/>The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated,
<lb n="161477"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">distingué</foreign> and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the
<lb n="161478"/>bunch though you wouldn't think he had it in him yet you would. Besides
<lb n="161479"/>he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was though at
<lb n="161480"/>the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of
<lb n="161481"/>makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur with
<lb n="161482"/>the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same old matrimonial tangle
<lb n="161483"/>alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest stage favourite
<lb n="161484"/>instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole business. How
<lb n="161485"/>they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up between the two so
<lb n="161486"/>that their names were coupled in the public eye was told in court with letters
<lb n="161487"/>containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no
<lb n="161488"/>loophole to show that they openly cohabited two or three times a week at
<lb n="161489"/>some wellknown seaside hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal
<lb n="161490"/>course, became in due course intimate. Then the decree <foreign xml:lang="la">nisi</foreign> and the King's
<lb n="161491"/>proctor tries to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, <foreign xml:lang="la">nisi</foreign> was made
<lb n="161492"/>absolute. But as for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely
<lb n="161493"/>were in one another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did
<lb n="161494"/>till the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for the
<lb n="161495"/>party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being close
<lb n="161496"/>to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on the
<lb n="161497"/>historic fracas when the fallen leader's, who notoriously stuck to his guns to
<lb n="161498"/>the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery, (leader's) trusty
<lb n="161499"/>henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or possibly even more than that
<lb n="161500"/>penetrated into the printing works of the <title type="newspaper">Insuppressible</title> or no it was <title type="newspaper">United
<lb n="161501"/>Ireland</title> (a by no means by the by appropriate appellative) and broke up the
<lb n="161502"/>typecases with hammers or something like that all on account of some
<lb n="161503"/>scurrilous effusions from the facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the
<lb n="161504"/>usual mudslinging occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private
<lb n="161505"/>morals. Though palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding
<lb n="161506"/>figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose
<lb n="161507"/>which went a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their
<lb n="161508"/>vast discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a
<lb n="161509"/>pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were
<lb n="161510"/>particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor
<lb n="161511"/>injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that of course
<lb n="161512"/>congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately
<lb n="161513"/>not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell's) a silk one was inadvertently
<lb n="161514"/>knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who
<lb n="161515"/>picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return
<lb n="161516"/>it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting
<lb n="161517"/>and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time all
<lb n="161518"/>the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter
<lb n="161519"/>of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything
<lb n="161520"/>else, what's bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his mother's
<lb n="161521"/>knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once
<lb n="161522"/>because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect
<lb n="161523"/><emph>aplomb</emph>, saying: <emph>Thank you, sir</emph>, though in a very different tone of voice
<lb n="161524"/>from the ornament of the legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to
<lb n="161525"/>rights earlier in the course of the day, history repeating itself with a
<lb n="161526"/>difference, after the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone
<lb n="161527"/>in his glory after the grim task of having committed his remains to the
<lb n="161528"/>grave.</p>
<p><lb n="161529"/>On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant
<lb n="161530"/>jokes of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing
<lb n="161531"/>immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the
<lb n="161532"/>wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case for
<lb n="161533"/>the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate husband
<lb n="161534"/>happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from the usual
<lb n="161535"/>boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial moment in a
<lb n="161536"/>loving position locked in one another's arms, drawing attention to their
<lb n="161537"/>illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic rumpus and the erring fair
<lb n="161538"/>one begging forgiveness of her lord and master upon her knees and
<lb n="161539"/>promising to sever the connection and not receive his visits any more if only
<lb n="161540"/>the aggrieved husband would overlook the matter and let bygones be
<lb n="161541"/>bygones with tears in her eyes though possibly with her tongue in her fair
<lb n="161542"/>cheek at the same time as quite possibly there were several others. He
<lb n="161543"/>personally, being of a sceptical bias, believed and didn't make the smallest
<lb n="161544"/>bones about saying so either that man or men in the plural were always
<lb n="161545"/>hanging around on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the
<lb n="161546"/>best wife in the world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of
<lb n="161547"/>argument, when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life
<lb n="161548"/>and was on for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions
<lb n="161549"/>on her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred on
<lb n="161550"/>another, the cause of many <foreign xml:lang="fr">liaisons</foreign> between still attractive married women
<lb n="161551"/>getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as several famous
<lb n="161552"/>cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt.</p>
<p><lb n="161553"/>It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of
<lb n="161554"/>brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time with
<lb n="161555"/>profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him his
<lb n="161556"/>lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take unto
<lb n="161557"/>himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim ladies'
<lb n="161558"/>society was a <foreign xml:lang="la">conditio sine qua non</foreign> though he had the gravest possible
<lb n="161559"/>doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen about Miss
<lb n="161560"/>Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who brought him
<lb n="161561"/>down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he would find
<lb n="161562"/>much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea and the
<lb n="161563"/>company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or triweekly
<lb n="161564"/>with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and walking
<lb n="161565"/>out leading up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To think of him
<lb n="161566"/>house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any stepmother,
<lb n="161567"/>was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things he popped out with
<lb n="161568"/>attracted the elder man who was several years the other's senior or like his
<lb n="161569"/>father but something substantial he certainly ought to eat even were it only
<lb n="161570"/>an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the
<lb n="161571"/>homely Humpty Dumpty boiled.
<lb n="161572"/><said who="lb">―At what o'clock did you dine?</said> he questioned of the slim form and tired
<lb n="161573"/>though unwrinkled face.
<lb n="161574"/><said who="sd">―Some time yesterday,</said> Stephen said.
<lb n="161575"/><said who="lb">―Yesterday!</said> exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow
<lb n="161576"/>Friday. <said who="lb">Ah, you mean it's after twelve!</said>
<lb n="161577"/><said who="sd">―The day before yesterday,</said> Stephen said, improving on himself.</p>
<p><lb n="161578"/>Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected.
<lb n="161579"/>Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there
<lb n="161580"/>somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one
<lb n="161581"/>train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of
<lb n="161582"/>years previously when he had been a <foreign xml:lang="la">quasi</foreign> aspirant to parliamentary
<lb n="161583"/>honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in retrospect (which
<lb n="161584"/>was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had a sneaking regard for
<lb n="161585"/>those same ultra ideas. For instance when the evicted tenants question, then
<lb n="161586"/>at its first inception, bulked largely in people's mind though, it goes without
<lb n="161587"/>saying, not contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its
<lb n="161588"/>dictums, some of which wouldn't exactly hold water, he at the outset in
<lb n="161589"/>principle at all events was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession as
<lb n="161590"/>voicing the trend of modern opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising
<lb n="161591"/>his mistake, he was subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted
<lb n="161592"/>with going a step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one
<lb n="161593"/>time inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly
<lb n="161594"/>resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our friend
<lb n="161595"/>at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he, though often
<lb n="161596"/>considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of mortals, be it
<lb n="161597"/>repeated, departed from his customary habit to give him (metaphorically)
<lb n="161598"/>one in the gizzard though, so far as politics themselves were concerned, he
<lb n="161599"/>was only too conscious of the casualties invariably resulting from
<lb n="161600"/>propaganda and displays of mutual animosity and the misery and suffering
<lb n="161601"/>it entailed as a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly,
<lb n="161602"/>destruction of the fittest, in a word.</p>
<p><lb n="161603"/>Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it
<lb n="161604"/>was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it was a bit
<lb n="161605"/>risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue (somebody
<lb n="161606"/>having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash altogether as on
<lb n="161607"/>the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed unknown) with a lame
<lb n="161608"/>paw (not that the cases were either identical or the reverse though he had
<lb n="161609"/>hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he very distinctly remembered,
<lb n="161610"/>having been there, so to speak. On the other hand it was altogether far and
<lb n="161611"/>away too late for the Sandymount or Sandycove suggestion so that he was
<lb n="161612"/>in some perplexity as to which of the two alternatives. Everything pointed to
<lb n="161613"/>the fact that it behoved him to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all
<lb n="161614"/>things considered. His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or
<lb n="161615"/>not over effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn't
<lb n="161616"/>what you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him
<lb n="161617"/>was he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he did
<lb n="161618"/>entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal pleasure if
<lb n="161619"/>he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some wardrobe, if
<lb n="161620"/>found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, eschewing for the
<lb n="161621"/>nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and a shakedown for
<lb n="161622"/>the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled into a pillow at
<lb n="161623"/>least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet he failed
<lb n="161624"/>to perceive any very vast amount of harm in that always with the proviso no
<lb n="161625"/>rumpus of any sort was kicked up. A move had to be made because that
<lb n="161626"/>merry old soul, the grasswidower in question who appeared to be glued to
<lb n="161627"/>the spot, didn't appear in any particular hurry to wend his way home to his
<lb n="161628"/>dearly beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some sponger's
<lb n="161629"/>bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no bar off Sheriff street
<lb n="161630"/>lower would be the best clue to that equivocal character's whereabouts for a
<lb n="161631"/>few days to come, alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids') with
<lb n="161632"/>sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze
<lb n="161633"/>the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms
<lb n="161634"/>betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large
<lb n="161635"/>potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who he
<lb n="161636"/>in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra
<lb n="161637"/>remarks <foreign xml:lang="la">passim</foreign>. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle
<lb n="161638"/>repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew. People
<lb n="161639"/>could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a
<lb n="161640"/>bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender Achilles. Your
<lb n="161641"/>god was a jew. Because mostly they appeared to imagine he came from
<lb n="161642"/>Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts in the county Sligo.
<lb n="161643"/><said who="lb">―I propose,</said> our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while
<lb n="161644"/>prudently pocketing her photo, <said who="lb">as it's rather stuffy here you just come home
<lb n="161645"/>with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the vicinity.
<lb n="161646"/>You can't drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I'll just pay this lot.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161647"/>The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain
<lb n="161648"/>sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper of
<lb n="161649"/>the shanty who didn't seem to.
<lb n="161650"/><said who="lb">―Yes, that's the best,</said> he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of that
<lb n="161651"/>Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less.</p>
<p><lb n="161652"/>All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B's) busy brain,
<lb n="161653"/>education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to
<lb n="161654"/>date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed with hydros
<lb n="161655"/>and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the accent
<lb n="161656"/>perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other things, no necessity, of
<lb n="161657"/>course, to tell the world and his wife from the housetops about it, and a slice
<lb n="161658"/>of luck. An opening was all was wanted. Because he more than suspected he
<lb n="161659"/>had his father's voice to bank his hopes on which it was quite on the cards
<lb n="161660"/>he had so it would be just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the
<lb n="161661"/>conversation in the direction of that particular red herring just to.</p>
<p><lb n="161662"/>The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former
<lb n="161663"/>viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers' association dinner in
<lb n="161664"/>London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this thrilling
<lb n="161665"/>announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared to have
<lb n="161666"/>some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell had left
<lb n="161667"/>Euston for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect. To which
<lb n="161668"/>absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why.
<lb n="161669"/><said who="dbm">―Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather,</said> the ancient mariner put in,
<lb n="161670"/>manifesting some natural impatience.
<lb n="161671"/><said who="uhc">―And welcome,</said> answered the elderly party thus addressed.</p>
<p><lb n="161672"/>The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles
<lb n="161673"/>which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears.
<lb n="161674"/><said who="uhc">―Are you bad in the eyes?</said> the sympathetic personage like the townclerk
<lb n="161675"/>queried.
<lb n="161676"/><said who="dbm">―Why,</said> answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was a
<lb n="161677"/>bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen portholes
<lb n="161678"/>as you might well describe them as, <said who="dbm">I uses goggles reading. Sand in the Red
<lb n="161679"/>Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, manner of
<lb n="161680"/>speaking. <title type="book">The Arabian Nights Entertainment</title> was my favourite and <title type="book">Red as
<lb n="161681"/>a Rose is She</title>.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161682"/>Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only
<lb n="161683"/>knows what, found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger
<lb n="161684"/>having made a hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts,
<lb n="161685"/>during which time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely
<lb n="161686"/>occupied loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which
<lb n="161687"/>manifestly pinched him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of
<lb n="161688"/>them who were sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial
<lb n="161689"/>expressions, that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a
<lb n="161690"/>trivial remark.</p>
<p><lb n="161691"/>To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first
<lb n="161692"/>to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first and
<lb n="161693"/>foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for the
<lb n="161694"/>occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as
<lb n="161695"/>a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were not looking
<lb n="161696"/>to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a grand total of
<lb n="161697"/>fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four coppers, literally
<lb n="161698"/>the last of the Mohicans), he having previously spotted on the printed
<lb n="161699"/>pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him in unmistakable figures, coffee
<lb n="161700"/>2d, confectionery do, and honestly well worth twice the money once in a
<lb n="161701"/>way, as Wetherup used to remark.
<lb n="161702"/><said who="lb">―Come,</said> he counselled to close the <foreign xml:lang="fr">séance</foreign>.</p>
<p><lb n="161703"/>Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the
<lb n="161704"/>shelter or shanty together and the <foreign xml:lang="fr">élite</foreign> society of oilskin and company
<lb n="161705"/>whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their <foreign xml:lang="it">dolce far
<lb n="161706"/>niente</foreign>. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and fagged out,
<lb n="161707"/>paused at the, for a moment, the door.
<lb n="161708"/><said who="sd">―One thing I never understood,</said> he said to be original on the spur of the
<lb n="161709"/>moment. <said who="sd">Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs upside
<lb n="161710"/>down, on the tables in cafés.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161711"/>To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a
<lb n="161712"/>moment's hesitation, saying straight off:
<lb n="161713"/><said who="lb">―To sweep the floor in the morning.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161714"/>So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same
<lb n="161715"/>time apologetic to get on his companion's right, a habit of his, by the bye,
<lb n="161716"/>his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The night air was
<lb n="161717"/>certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit weak on his pins.
<lb n="161718"/><said who="lb">―It will (the air) do you good,</said> Bloom said, meaning also the walk, <said who="lb">in a
<lb n="161719"/>moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. Come.
<lb n="161720"/>It's not far. Lean on me.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161721"/>Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen's right and led him on
<lb n="161722"/>accordingly.
<lb n="161723"/><said who="sd">―Yes,</said> Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange kind of
<lb n="161724"/>flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all that.</p>
<p><lb n="161725"/>Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where the
<lb n="161726"/>municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and purposes
<lb n="161727"/>wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming of fresh
<lb n="161728"/>fields and pastures new. And <foreign xml:lang="fr">apropos</foreign> of coffin of stones the analogy was
<lb n="161729"/>not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the part of seventytwo
<lb n="161730"/>out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the time of the split and
<lb n="161731"/>chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the selfsame evicted tenants he
<lb n="161732"/>had put in their holdings.</p>
<p><lb n="161733"/>So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
<lb n="161734"/>Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made tracks
<lb n="161735"/>arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though confessedly
<lb n="161736"/>grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to follow at the
<lb n="161737"/>first go-off but the music of Mercadante's <title type="opera">Huguenots</title>, Meyerbeer's <title type="oratorio">Seven
<lb n="161738"/>Last Words on the Cross</title> and Mozart's <title>Twelfth Mass</title> he simply revelled in,
<lb n="161739"/>the <title>Gloria</title> in that being, to his mind, the acme of first class music as such,
<lb n="161740"/>literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred
<lb n="161741"/>the sacred music of the catholic church to anything the opposite shop could
<lb n="161742"/>offer in that line such as those Moody and Sankey hymns or <emph>Bid me to live
<lb n="161743"/>and I will live thy protestant to be</emph>. He also yielded to none in his
<lb n="161744"/>admiration of Rossini's <title type="song" xml:lang="la">Stabat Mater</title>, a work simply abounding in
<lb n="161745"/>immortal numbers, in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a
<lb n="161746"/>veritable sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laurels
<lb n="161747"/>and putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers' church in
<lb n="161748"/>upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors to hear
<lb n="161749"/>her with virtuosos, or <foreign xml:lang="it">virtuosi</foreign> rather. There was the unanimous opinion
<lb n="161750"/>that there was none to come up to her and suffice it to say in a place of
<lb n="161751"/>worship for music of a sacred character there was a generally voiced desire
<lb n="161752"/>for an encore. On the whole though favouring preferably light opera of the
<lb n="161753"/><title type="opera">Don Giovanni</title> description and <title type="opera">Martha</title>, a gem in its line, he had a <foreign xml:lang="fr">penchant</foreign>,
<lb n="161754"/>though with only a surface knowledge, for the severe classical school such
<lb n="161755"/>as Mendelssohn. And talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about
<lb n="161756"/>the old favourites, he mentioned <foreign xml:lang="fr">par excellence</foreign> Lionel's air in <title type="opera">Martha</title>,
<lb n="161757"/><title type="song" xml:lang="it">M'appari</title>, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be more
<lb n="161758"/>accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the lips of
<lb n="161759"/>Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the number, in
<lb n="161760"/>fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in reply to a
<lb n="161761"/>politely put query, said he didn't sing it but launched out into praises of
<lb n="161762"/>Shakespeare's songs, at least of in or about that period, the lutenist
<lb n="161763"/>Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who <foreign xml:lang="la">annos
<lb n="161764"/>ludendo hausi, Doulandus</foreign>, an instrument he was contemplating purchasing
<lb n="161765"/>from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite recall though the name
<lb n="161766"/>certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with
<lb n="161767"/>their <foreign xml:lang="it">dux</foreign> and <foreign xml:lang="it">comes</foreign> conceits and Byrd (William) who played the virginals,
<lb n="161768"/>he said, in the Queen's chapel or anywhere else he found them and one
<lb n="161769"/>Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull.</p>
<p><lb n="161770"/>On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking
<lb n="161771"/>beyond the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven
<lb n="161772"/>ground, brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom
<lb n="161773"/>was not perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to
<lb n="161774"/>sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political
<lb n="161775"/>celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a striking
<lb n="161776"/>coincidence.</p>
<p><lb n="161777"/>By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving,
<lb n="161778"/>Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other's
<lb n="161779"/>sleeve gently, jocosely remarking:
<lb n="161780"/><said who="lb">―Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161781"/>They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not
<lb n="161782"/>worth anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite
<lb n="161783"/>near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh
<lb n="161784"/>because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a
<lb n="161785"/>taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the lord
<lb n="161786"/>of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such a good
<lb n="161787"/>poor brute he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but, as he wisely
<lb n="161788"/>reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that might
<lb n="161789"/>crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a horse, without
<lb n="161790"/>a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, take that mongrel
<lb n="161791"/>in Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy horror to face. But it
<lb n="161792"/>was no animal's fault in particular if he was built that way like the camel,
<lb n="161793"/>ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of
<lb n="161794"/>them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring
<lb n="161795"/>the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his
<lb n="161796"/>back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye.
<lb n="161797"/>These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind
<lb n="161798"/>somewhat distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was
<lb n="161799"/>manoeuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old.
<lb n="161800"/><said who="lb">―What's this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife,</said> he intimated, plunging <foreign xml:lang="la">in
<lb n="161801"/>medias res</foreign>, <said who="lb">would have the greatest of pleasure in making your
<lb n="161802"/>acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind.</said></p>
<p><lb n="161803"/>He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen,
<lb n="161804"/>image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome
<lb n="161805"/>blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as
<lb n="161806"/>he was perhaps not that way built.</p>
<p><lb n="161807"/>Still, supposing he had his father's gift as he more than suspected, it
<lb n="161808"/>opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall's Irish industries,
<lb n="161809"/>concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general.</p>
<p><lb n="161810"/>Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air <title type="song">Youth here has
<lb n="161811"/>End</title> by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows
<lb n="161812"/>come from. Even more he liked an old German song of Johannes Jeep
<lb n="161813"/>about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, which
<lb n="161814"/>boggled Bloom a bit:</p>
<quote xml:lang="de"><lg rend="italics"><lb n="161815"/><l>Von der Sirenen Listigkeit</l>
<lb n="161816"/><l>Tun die Poeten dichten.</l></lg></quote>
<p><lb n="161817"/>These opening bars he sang and translated <foreign xml:lang="la">extempore</foreign>. Bloom,
<lb n="161818"/>nodding, said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all
<lb n="161819"/>means which he did.</p>
<p><lb n="161820"/>A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,
<lb n="161821"/>which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, if
<lb n="161822"/>properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production such as
<lb n="161823"/>Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, command its
<lb n="161824"/>own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate
<lb n="161825"/>possessor in the near future an <foreign xml:lang="fr">entrée</foreign> into fashionable houses in the best
<lb n="161826"/>residential quarters of financial magnates in a large way of business and
<lb n="161827"/>titled people where with his university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way)
<lb n="161828"/>and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the good impression he
<lb n="161829"/>would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which
<lb n="161830"/>also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his clothes
<lb n="161831"/>were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into their good
<lb n="161832"/>graces as he, a youthful tyro in society's sartorial niceties, hardly
<lb n="161833"/>understood how a little thing like that could militate against you. It was in
<lb n="161834"/>fact only a matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating
<lb n="161835"/>in their musical and artistic <foreign xml:lang="it">conversaziones</foreign> during the festivities of the
<lb n="161836"/>Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the
<lb n="161837"/>fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which,
<lb n="161838"/>as he happened to know, were on record – in fact, without giving the show
<lb n="161839"/>away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could easily have. Added
<lb n="161840"/>to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be
<lb n="161841"/>sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he parenthesised,
<lb n="161842"/>that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily embrace the lyric
<lb n="161843"/>platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of time. But a step in the
<lb n="161844"/>required direction it was beyond yea or nay and both monetarily and
<lb n="161845"/>mentally it contained no reflection on his dignity in the smallest and it often
<lb n="161846"/>turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a cheque at a muchneeded
<lb n="161847"/>moment when every little helped. Besides, though taste latterly had
<lb n="161848"/>deteriorated to a degree, original music like that, different from the
<lb n="161849"/>conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue as it would be a decided
<lb n="161850"/>novelty for Dublin's musical world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy
<lb n="161851"/>tenor solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton
<lb n="161852"/>St Just and their <foreign xml:lang="la">genus omne</foreign>. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could,
<lb n="161853"/>with all the cards in his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name
<lb n="161854"/>for himself and win a high place in the city's esteem where he could
<lb n="161855"/>command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the
<lb n="161856"/>patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming
<lb n="161857"/>to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big <emph>if</emph> however, with some impetus of the
<lb n="161858"/>goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped
<lb n="161859"/>up a too much fêted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from
<lb n="161860"/>the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time
<lb n="161861"/>to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing
<lb n="161862"/>without its clashing with his vocal career or containing anything derogatory
<lb n="161863"/>whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In fact, he had the ball at
<lb n="161864"/>his feet and that was the very reason why the other, possessed of a
<lb n="161865"/>remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat of any sort, hung on to him at all.</p>
<p><lb n="161866"/>The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he
<lb n="161867"/>purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on the
<lb n="161868"/><emph>fools step in where angels</emph> principle, advising him to sever his connection
<lb n="161869"/>with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was prone to disparage
<lb n="161870"/>and even to a slight extent with some hilarious pretext when not present,
<lb n="161871"/>deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it which in Bloom's humble
<lb n="161872"/>opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of a person's character, no pun
<lb n="161873"/>intended.</p>
<p><lb n="161874"/>The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted
<lb n="161875"/>and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on
<lb n="161876"/>the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking
<lb n="161877"/>globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full crupper he
<lb n="161878"/>mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had ended, patient in
<lb n="161879"/>his scythed car.</p>
<p><lb n="161880"/>Side by side Bloom, profiting by the <foreign xml:lang="fr">contretemps</foreign>, with Stephen passed
<lb n="161881"/>through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping over a
<lb n="161882"/>strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, Stephen singing
<lb n="161883"/>more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad.</p>
<quote xml:lang="de"><lg rend="italics"><lb n="161884"/><l>Und alle Schiffe brücken.</l></lg></quote>
<p><lb n="161885"/>The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely
<lb n="161886"/>watched the two figures, <emph>as he sat on his lowbacked car</emph>, both black, one
<lb n="161887"/>full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, <emph>to be married by Father
<lb n="161888"/>Maher</emph>. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again continuing
<lb n="161889"/>their <foreign xml:lang="fr">tête à tête</foreign> (which, of course, he was utterly out of) about sirens,
<lb n="161890"/>enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the same
<lb n="161891"/>category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind while the man in the sweeper
<lb n="161892"/>car or you might as well call it in the sleeper car who in any case couldn't
<lb n="161893"/>possibly hear because they were too far simply sat in his seat near the end of
<lb n="161894"/>lower Gardiner street <emph>and looked after their lowbacked car</emph>.</p>
</div> <!-- End of Episode 16, "Eumaeus" -->