{ms, 013}
messageº evidentlyº as he took particular notice.

Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated having detected a discrepancyº between his name, assuming he was the person he represented himself to be, and the fictitious addressee of the missive nevertheless it reminded him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise of travelling to London via long sea for he was at heart a born adventurer, though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but some hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking down and breaking Boyd's heart it was not so dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to Mullingar was five and six, there and back. The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in every way thoroughly pleasurable seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of the sights of the great metropolis, modern Babylon, tower, abbey, wealth of Park lane, to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just struck him as by no means a bad notion was he might have a gaze around on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert tour embracing the chief pleasure resorts, Margate and so on. Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company, witness Mrs C P M^cCoy type lend me your valise and I'll post you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star Irish caste, perfectly simple matter providing puffs in the local papers could be managed and thus combine business with pleasure.

Also it struck him a great field was to be opened up in the line of opening up new routes apropos of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which it was mooted was once more on the tapis in the circumlocution departments with the usual dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e, Brown, Robinson and so forth.
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It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street for the matter of a couple of paltry pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for a wife. After all they had their eleven and more humdrum months of it and merited a radical change of venue in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. There were delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation in and around Dublin even, Poulaphouca to which there was a steamtram but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland, and in the wilds of Donegal, if report spoke true, though not easily gettatable. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely in its infancy, so to speak, and the accomodation left much to be desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen.

— I seen a Chinese one time, related the narrator, that had little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he added, the chinks does.

Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventure.

— And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his back. Knife like that.

Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in keeping with his character and held it in the striking position.

— In a knockingshop it was, count of a tryon between two smugglers. Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. Prepare to meet your God, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt.
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^|2The Hisº^2| heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further questions even should they by any chance want to.

— That's a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable knife.

After which harrowing tale he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.

— They're great for the cold steel, somebody said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them using knifes knives.

At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance is bliss Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particularº way, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the strictly entre nous variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, alias the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, conveyed the impressionº that he didn't understand one jot of what was going on. Funny, very!

There followed a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the natives choza de, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he was concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously when in the days of the land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, in eightyone when he was just turned fifteen

— Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers.

The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape.

— Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom asked.

The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be ^|2read as^2| yes, ay or no.

— Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he had,
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in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences. But he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn.

— What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the boats?

Our sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before answering:

— I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships. Salt junk all the time.

Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe, suffice it to say that it covered fully three fourths of it, and he fully realised accordingly what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring calmly at it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were there was really no secret about it. Nevertheless the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody had to sail on it though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance were run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, having it brought home to them like that should extend
{ms, 017}
its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man the rigging and push off and out whatever the season when duty called and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights, Kish and others, rounding which he once with his daughter had experiencedº some remarkably choppy, not to sto say, stormy weather.

— There was a fellow sailed with me in the Rover, the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a ^|2soft^2| job as gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper's in Cork where he could be drawing easy money.

— What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away from the cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint.

— Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son, Danny? He'd be about eighteen now, way I figure it.

He tore open his grey or unclean anyhow shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an anchor

— There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts. I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It's them black lads I objects to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does.

Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accomodatingly dragged his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the mariner's hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a young man's sideface looking frowningly rather.

— Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton, best bloody man ever scuttled
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a ship. Fellow, the name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek.

— Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor.

That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the. Someway in his. Squeezing or.

— See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his fingers some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn.

And in point of fact the young man named Antonio's livid face did actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the unaffected admirationº of everybody including Skin-the-Goat who this time stretched over.

— Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He's gone too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay.

He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression of before.

— Neat bit of work, one said.

— And what's the number for? another said.

— Eaten alive? a third.

— Ay, ay, sighed again the sailor, more cheerily this time with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only ^|2in the directionº^2| of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was, and then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged end. As bad as old Antonio for he left me on my ownio.

The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat peered askew round the door of the shelter. Mr Bloom turned away on the moment ^|2flusterfied but outwardly calm,^2| and, picking up from the table the pink sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment round the door the same face he met that afternoon on Ormond quay, the female, namely, of the lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.) and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed rather vague than not,
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your washing. Still candour compelled him to admit he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles street and women would and did too a man's similar garments if they really loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still just then he desired the female's room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he just caught a ^|2fleeting^2| glimpse of her face round the side of the door with a kind of demented glassy grin viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper Murphy's chest and then there was no more of her.

— The gunboat, the keeper said.

— It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking, how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition.

Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely remarking:

— In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.

The elder man, though not by any manner of means a prude, said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that women of that stamp, a necessary evil, were not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, he could truthfully state, he was a stalwart advocate of from the very start. Whoever embarked on a policy of the sort, he said, would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned.

— You as a good catholic, he subjoined, talking of body and soul, believe in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligenceº, the brainpower as such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I believe in that myself because it has been explained by the convolutionsº
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of the brain. Otherwise we would never have such inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you?

Thus asked, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try to concentrate and remember before he could say:

— They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and therefore incorruptibleº. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of ^|2his His^2| other practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by court etiquette.

Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the mystical finesse involved was a bit beyond him.

— Simple, he demurred, I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a while. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for instance to invent those rays Röntgen did or the telescope like Edison, though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean, ^|2the same applies to^2| the laws, for example, of a far reaching natural phenomenon such as electricity but it's a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in ^|2the existence of^2| a supernatural God.

— O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial evidence.

On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in their respective ages, clashed.

— Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his original point with a smile of unbelief. I'm not so sure about that. That's a matter for everyman's opinion and I beg to differ with you there. Those bits were put in by monks most probably or it's a big question who precisely wrote them like Hamlet and Bacon, as,
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you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It's like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still no-one can give what he hasn't got. Try a bit.

— Couldn't, Stephen replied.

Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom of Stephen's cup and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and lucrative) work. To be sure it did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concertsº, dramatic evenings and useful lectures by qualified men for the lower orders. On the other hand he had a distinct recollection they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, a very modest remuneration indeed for her pianoplayingº. The idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was to do good and net a profit there being no competition. to speak of. Sulphate of copper poison SO₄ or something in some dried peas he remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical inspection, of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary.

— Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being stirred.

Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug from the brown puddle it clopped out of it when taken up by the handle and took a sip.

— Still it's solid food, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid food, his one and only reason being not gormandisingº but regular meals as the con sine qua non for anykind of proper work, mental or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different man.

— Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, ^|2obligate oblige^2| me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history

Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminatedº article, a blunt hornhandled
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ordinary knife with nothing very Roman or antique ^|2about in^2| it ^|2to the eye^2|, observing that the point was the least conspicuous point about it.

— Our mutual friend's stories are like himselfº, Mr Bloom apropos of knives remarked to Stephen sotto voce. Do you think they are genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and lie like old boots. Look at him.

Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all he said being strictly accurate.

He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him. Though a wellpreserved man, if a trifle prone to baldness, there was something ^|2spuriousº^2| in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself. On the other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because meeting mugs, Dublin residents, like those jarvies waitingº news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner to draw the long bow about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera. And when all was said and done the lies a fellow told about himself couldn't probably hold a candle to the whoppers other fellows told about him.

— Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention, he resumed. Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged. They couldn't straighten their legs because the muscles here, you see, he proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of
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the sinews or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as gods. There's an example again of simple. souls.

However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures there was nothing intrinsically incompatibleº about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the back touch was quite typical of those italianos though candidly he was free to admit those icecream and fishfriers and so forth over in little Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary cat of others at night so as to have a good old succulent meal with garlic de rigueur off him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.

— Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate impetuous temperaments like that are given to taking the law into their own hands and give you your quietus doublequick with a those poignards they carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. She has the Spanish type. Quite dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate accounts for character. That's why I asked you if you wrote poetry in Italian.

— The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very passionate about five shillings. Roberto ruba roba sua.

— Quite so, Mr Bloom agreed.

— Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isoceles triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san Tommaso Mastino.

— It's in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare street museum today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call it, and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don't knock against those kind of women here. An exception here and there. Handsome
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yes, pretty in a way you find but I'm talking about the female form. Besides they have so little taste in dress, most of them. Rumpled stockings, it may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it's a thing I simply hate to see.

Interest, however, was beginning to flag somewhat all round and the others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog, collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. The sailor of course had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him.

So then after that they drifted on to the wreck ofº Daunt's rock, wreck of the Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell remembered it Palme on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of the town that year, breakers running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore petrified with horror. Then someone said something the case of the s.s. Lady Cairns of Swansea run into by the Mona which was on an opposite tack and lost with all hands. No aid was given. Her master, the Mona's, said he was afraidº his collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it appears, in her hold.

At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat.

— Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just gently dropping off into a doze.

He walked heavily, slowly to the door, stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore due left with a dumpy kind of a gait. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's rum one sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning interior, saw him take one out and uncork it or unscrew and take a good old swig out of it on the strict q.t. The irrepressible
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Bloom who also had a shrewd suspicion he went out on a manoeuvre after the female attraction who however had disappeared to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him^|2, when duly refreshed,^2| gaping up at the piers and girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person or persons invisible directed him to the urinal erected by the cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor eased himself nearer closer at hand, the noise of his bilgewater some little time after subsequently splashing on the ground where it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporationº who, though now broken down ^|2and fast breaking up^2|, was none other in reality than the Gumley aforesaid given the temporaryº job by Pat Tobin in all human probability from the dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent home comforts all his life. And there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a penny to his name. He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of business if — a big if, however, he had contrived to cure himself of his partiality

All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well which was part and parcel of the same thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin, the only
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launchº that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no ships ever called

There were wrecks and wrecks, the keeper said. What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted, eh? Ask the then captain, he advised them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that day's work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line.

— Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after his private potation and the rest. of his exertions.

That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate the plug probably which it was so that he must have lodged it for the time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found it a bit sour after. Anyhow in he rolled, ^|2boisterously^2| trolling:

— The biscuits was as hard as brass
And the beef as salt as Lot's wife arse.
O, Johnny Lever!
Johnny Lever, O!

After which effusion ^|2he arrived on the scene and^2| regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form provided. Skin the Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to grind, was airing his grievances ^|2in a forcible-feeble philippic^2| anent the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he described in his dissertation as the richest country on the face of God's earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every year, ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained out of it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through the nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot more surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly became general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated,
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and there was colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon. But a day of reckoning, he stated with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolisingº ^|2all^2| the conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little look in, he affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England was toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel, which he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he showed the tendon on his boot. His advice to every Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work for Ireland and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of her sons.

^|2Silence all round marked the termination of his finale.^2| The sailor heard these lurid tidings, undismayed.

— Take a bit of doing, boss, he retaliated.

To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper concurred but nevertheless held to his main view.

— Who's the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and generals we've got? Tell me that.

— The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell.

— That's right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic peasant. He's the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins?

While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing to the listeners who followed ^|2the passage of arms^2| with interest so long as they didn't indulge in recriminations and
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come to blows.

From inside information Mr Bloom was rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion for, pending that consummationº devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were bigger fools than he took them for, rather concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea that in a hundred million years Englan the coal seam of the sister island would be played out ^|2and as a host of contingencies might occur ere then it was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even though poles apart^2|. Another little point, the amours of whores and chummies reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible, and the other, obviously bogus ^|2suggested reminded him forcibly of^2| the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged ^|2and as^2| the looker-on, a student of the human soul if anything, the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, who probably wasn't the other person at all, he, (B.) couldn't help feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the goby and refuse to have anything to do with them ^|2in private life^2| and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman turning Queen's evidence or King's now like Denis Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet he certainly did feel and no denying it a certain kind of admiration for a man who had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his ^|2politicalº^2| convictions on all fours with those love vendettas of the south, have her or swing for her, until it just struck him that, Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some legal
{ms, 029}
luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now. and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin the etcetera he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell positively last performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow so similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some £.s.d. rounds round the docks in the Old Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the other he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the offender

— He took umbrage at something or other, the that muchinjured person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts in the leasts told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his family like me though in really I'm not. That was one for him. A soft answer turns away wrath. He hadn't a word to say for himself, as everyone saw. Am I not right?

He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty.

— Ex quibus, Stephen mumbled ^|2in a noncommital accent^2|, their two or four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name is or after all any other, secundum carnem.

— Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is, though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on ^|2the^2| instalments plan. It's a patent absurdity to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, in the next house so to speak.

— Memorable Bloody Bridge battle, Stephen assented, between Skinner's alley and Ormond market.

Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, that was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of
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sort of thing.

— You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of conflicting evidence that ^|2candidly^2| you couldn't remotely ….

All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were very largely a question of ^|2the^2| money ^|2question^2| which was at the back of everything greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop.

— They accuse, remarked he audibly.

He turned away from the others who probably. and spoke nearer to, so as the others in case they.

— Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History^|2, would you be surprised to learn,^2| proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects had much to answer for, imported them. Why? Because, they are imbued with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any because you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as you are. But in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with America. Turks. It's in the dogma. Because if they didn't believe they'd go straight to heaven when they died they'd try to live better, at least so I think. That's the juggle on which the p.p's raise the wind on false pretences. I'm, he resumed with dramatic force, as good an Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes having a comfortable income, something in the neighbourhood of £300 per annum. That's the vital issue at stake and it's feasible and would be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least, that's my idea for what it's worth. I call that patriotism. Ubi patria, as we learned a smattering of in our classical days, vita bene. Where you can live well, the sense is, if you work.

Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared
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at nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or didn't say the words the voice he heard said, if you work.

— Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work.

The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person who owned ^|2those eyes them^2| pro. tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all must work, have to, together.

— I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That's work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important.

— You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of laugh, that I may be important because I belong to Ireland.

— I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.

— But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me.

— What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the latter portion. What was it you ….?

Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding:

— We can't change the country. Let us change the subject.
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At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject looked down but in a quandary, not knowing exactly what construction to put on belongs to. The rebuke of some kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of his recent orgy spoke then in a curious bitter way foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he hadn't met the right sort of people. With a touch of fear for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an air of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris, failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind instances of cultured fellows a bit too precious that promised so brilliantly nipped in the bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For instance there was the case of O'Callaghan the halfcrazy faddist, respectably connected ^|2though of inadequate means^2|, with his mad vagaries among whose other gay doings he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual denouement he got ^|2landed^2| into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends after a strong hint from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, under section two of the criminal law amendment act, certain names being handed in but not divulged for reasons which will occur to anyone. Putting ^|2this and that two and two^2| together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to, Antonio and so forth jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the l house of lords because ^|2early in life^2| the then heir apparent he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads under their veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature a thing Mrs Grundy was terribly down on though not for the reason they
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thought they were probably whatever it was except women chiefly who were always fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it ladies who like distinctive underclothing should and every welltailored man must trying to make the gap wider between them ^|2by innuendo^2| and give more of a filip to acts of impropriety between the two she unbuttoned his and then he untied her mind the pin whereas savages at ninety degrees in the shade not caring a particular. However, reverting to the original, there were on the other hand others who had forged their way to the top from the ^|2boerased lowest^2| rung. Sheer force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir.

For which and further reasons he left it was his interest and duty even to wait on and profit by the unlooked for occasion though why he could not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the bad having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food for talk would amply repay any small. Intellectualº stimulation, as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind. Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, old salt, night loafers, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the world we live in. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the common groove at the rate of one guinea per column. My experiences, let us say, in a cabman's shelter.

The pink edition extra sporting of the Telegraph tell a graphic ^|2story lie^2| lay, as ^|2it happened luck would have it^2|, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age his eyes went aimlessly over the respective captions which came
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his special province the allembracing give us this day our daily press. Great battle, Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, £200 damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration Swindle. Ascot meeting, the Gold cup. Victory of outsider Throwaway recalls Derby of '92 when Capt. Marshall's dark horse Sir Hugo captured the blue ribband at long odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of the late Mr Patrick Dignam.

So to change the subject he read about Dignam R.I.P. which, he reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address anyway.

— This morning (Hynes put it in of course) the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence. no 9 Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the deceased were present were carried out by (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny) Messrs H.J. O'Neill and Sons, Son, 164 North Strand Road. The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan (brother-in-law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John Power,.)eatondph 1/8 ador dorador douradora (must be where he called Monks the dayfather about Keyes's ad) Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, Stephen Dedalus B.A., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius Kelleher, Joseph M'C Hynes, L. Boom, C P M^cCoy, — Mackintosh and several others.

Nettled not a little by L Boom and the line of bitched type but amused simultaneously by C.P. M^cCoy and Stephen Dedalus B.A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by their absence L. Boom pointed it out to his companion B.A.
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engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness.

— Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his ^|2lower bottom^2| jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it.

— It is. Really, Mr Bloom said overjoyed ^|2to set his mind at rest^2| and a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing to. There.

While the other was reading it on page two Boom whiled away a ^|2few odd^2| leisure ^|2moment moments^2| in fits and starts with the account of the race on page three, his side. Value 1000 sovs with 300 sovs in specie added. For entire colts and fillies. Throwaway by Rightaway-Thealeº (W. Lane) 1, lord Howard de Walden's Zinfandel (M. Cannon) 2, Mr W. Bass's Sceptre 3. Betting 5 to 4 on Zinfandel. 20 to 1 Throwaway (off). Sceptre a shade heavier, 5 to 4 on Zinfandel, 20 to 1 Throwaway (off). Throwaway and Zinfandel stood close order ^|2then drew to the fore^2|. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs with 300 in specie. Also ran. J de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons was inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) Maximum II. Winner trained by Braime. Different ways of ^|2getting money bringing off a coup.^2| lovemaking damages. Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent ^|2in his impetuosity to get left.^2| of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced itself to.

— There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom, said.

— Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said.

One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read: Return of Parnell. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it was killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for a time ^|2after committee room no 15^2| then they would have gone down on their marrowbones to him to come back. Dead he wasn't. The coffin they
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broughtº over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on.

All the same Bloom was rather surprised at their memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in his death. Either he petered out too tamely of pneumonia or whatever it ^|2was transpired he owed his death to^2| or the job was taken out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted with his movements even before there was absolutely no clue to his whereabouts so the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as a born leader of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure whereas Messrs So and So who ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay, and then seventytwo of ^|2them his trusty henchmen^2| rounding on him with mutual mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the understudy in the title role how to. He saw him once when they broke up the type in United Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said thank you excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior: what's bred in the bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if they didn't set the terrier at you. Then a lot of shillyshally usually followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And then, number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to produce your credentials. like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, Bella was the boat's name he, the heir,