It may be that with his deepseeing insight (had not wishing been but good time wasted) H.C.E. prayed all that time in ^|1secret silence ^|awith unfeigned charity^a|1| that his wordwounder might become the first of a distinguished dynasty, his most cherished of all ideas being the formation, as in more favoured climes, of a truly criminal stratum, thereby at last eliminating much general delinquency from all classes and masses.

The coffin was to come in handy later. This is the how of that. A number of public bodies ^|1before voting themselves out of existence in a watertight will^1| made him a present of a grave ^|1in a fair state of repair^1|
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^|1in wherein the remains of an epileptic were to have been laid to rest but^1| which nobody had ever been able to dig much less occupy. This grave he blasted with a landmine ^|1exploded from a bombingpost of 1400 feet in his aerial torpedo contacted with the expectant minefield by tins of ammonia lashed to her ^|aside and sides fused to^a| trip wires playing ^|adown^a| into the ground battery fuseboxes^1| and ^|1then^1| carefully lined the result with bricks and mortar, encouraging the same and other public bodies to present him over and above that with a stone slab. Coffins, windingsheets, cinerary urns and any kind of funeral bric à brac would naturally follow in the ordinary course.

The other spring offensive may have come about all quite by accident. From both camps (granted at once for the sake of argument that men on both sides had grand ideas) all conditions were drawn into the conflict, some for lack of proper feeding, others already ^|1caught^1| in the act of carving honourable careers for self and family, and, if emaciated, the person garotted may have suggested incarnate whiggery or even the grand old whig himself in the flesh, when falsesighted by the wouldbe burglar, a tory of the tories, for there then circulated pretty freely the feeling that in so hibernating Earwicker was secretly feeding on his own ^|1misplaced^1| fat.

Kate Strong, a widow, did all the scavenging from good King Charles golden days down
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but she cleaned only sparingly and her statement was that, there being no macadamised sidewalks in those R.I.C. days barring, a footpath which left off where the man was struck, she left, as scavengers will, a filth dump near the dogpond in the park, all over which ^|1fossilº^1| bootmarks, fingerprints, elbowdints, kneecaves, ^|v1fossil^v1| breechbowls were all successively found of a very involved description. It was on this resurfaced spot evidently that the attacker, though under medium, with truly native pluck tackled him whom he took to be somebody else ^|1to whom he bore some facial resemblance^1|, making use of sacrilegious language to the effect that he would have his life and lay him out at the same time catching hold of a long bar he had and with which he usually broke furniture. They struggled for some considerable time and in the course of it the masked man said to the other: Let me go, Pat. ^|1I hardly knew you.^1| Later on the same man asked: Was six pounds fifteen ^|1in all in round figures^1| taken ^|1from off^1| you^|1, tell us,^1| by anyone ^|12 or 3 3 or 4^1| months ago? There was some further severe mauling and then a wooden affair in the shape of a revolver fell from the intruder who thereupon became friendly and wanted to know
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whether his chance companion who still had the fender happened to have the ^|1loose^1| change of a ten pound note about him ^|1at the moment^1| as, if so, he would pay the six pounds odd out of that for what was taken on him ^|1on^1| last July. To this the other then said: Would you be ^|1very^1| surprised to ^|1hear learn^1| that I honestly have not such a thing as the loose change of a ten pound note about me at the ^|1present^1| moment but I believe I can see my way to advance you ^|1about^1| four and sevenpence between boppingº and trotting to buy whisky. At the mention of whisky the gunman became calm said he would go good to him ^|1some day^1| and remarking, apparently ^|1much pleased ^|ahighly pleased much more highly pleased than he could tell^a|1|: You stunning little Southdowner! Goalball I've struck this day!, by golly! You have some ^|1bully ^|aGerman^a|1| grit, Southdowner! he went off with the four and seven and the hurlbat, picked up, while the man who was left ^|1behind^1| with the fender, who bore up ^|1wonderfully^1| under all of it with a number of plumsized bruises on him, reported the occurrence at the watch house in Vicar street, his face all covered with nonfatal ^|1mammalian^1| blood as good proof of his serious character and that he was bleeding from the nose, mouth and two ears while some of his hair had been pulled off his head though otherwise his
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allround health was middling enough. Now coming on to the question of unlawfully obtaining pierced fender and ^|1firebrand fireguard^1| crops up like a shot the far more capital point of political bias of a person who, when mistakenly ambushed, was simply exercising one of the most primary liberties of the subject by walking along a public thoroughfare in broad daylight.

As if that was not enough for anybody but little headway was made when a countryman, Festy King, who gave an address in Joyce's country in the heart of a wellfamed poteen district, was subsequently brought up on an improperly framed indictment of both counts. It was attempted to show that King rubbed some dirt on his face ^|1to disguise as the best means of disguising^1| himself and was at the fair of a Monday ^|1attended by large numbers^1| with a pig when the animal ate some of the doorpost, King selling it because she ate a lot of the woodwork of her sty in order to pay off arrears of rent. An eyewitness said he ^|1remembered personally was pleased to remember^1| the fifth of November which was going to go down in the annals of history and that one thing
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which particularly struck ^|1him a person of his observational powers^1| was that he saw or heard Pat O'Donnell beat and murder another ^|1two^1| of the Kings, Simon ^|1& Peter^1|, between whom bad blood existed but it turned out in crossexamination that where the ambush was laid there was not as much light as would dim a child's altar and to the perplexedly uncondemnatory bench the first King ^|1of all^1|, Festy, ^|1as soon as the outer layer of dirt was removed at the request of the jury^1| declared through his interpreter on his oath and before God and all their honours that he did not fire a stone either before or after he was born ^|1down up^1| to that day and this he had the neck to supplement in the same language by postasserting that he would impart that he might never ask to see sight or light of this world or the next world or any other world if ever he up with a hand to take or throw the sign of a stone at man, sheep or salvation army either before or after being baptised ^|1up down^1| to that ^|1most^1| holy and blessed hour.