Stand forth (for no longer will I employ the inspired form of the third person singular but address myself to you direct) stand forth, come boldly^|1, jolly me,^1| move me to laughter in your true coloursº ere you be put back for ever till I give you your talkingto! ^|1Shem^|a, son of shame Macadamson^a|, you know me & I know you ^|a& all yr shemeries^a|!^1| How have you been all this ^|1quite a while^1| while, my tooralladdy? ^|1Let us hear how you ^|aenjoyed have been enjoying^a| yourself all the morning ^|aSince your last ^|bbad^b| confession^a|.^1| You were bred, fed, fostered and fattened ^|1from holy childhood up^1| in this 2 easter island on ^|1the piejaw of^1| a ^|1rollicking hilarious^1| heaven and a roaring hellº and now, forsooth, ^|1|anogger, a nogger among the blankards ^|bof this dastard century^b|,^a|1| you have become a ^|1raw^1| doubter in all known ^|1& unknown^1| gods, nay, condemned fool, anarch, egoarch, heresiarch, you have reared your disunited kingdom on the void of your far more than dubious soul. While yet an adolescent (what do I say?), while still puerile ^|1in your tubsuit with button legs^1| you received a gift of syringe & ^|1twin^1| feedersº (you know, my friend, to your cost as I do the mechanism I ^|1now allude to am now poking at ^|a& don't try to hide it^a|1|) that you might repopulate the land of your birth & count up your progeny by the hundred and the hundred thousand but you have thwarted the pious wish of your godmother ^|1on countless occasions of failing^1| and have added the morosity of your delectations to Lubbock's pleasures of life ^|1inflicting your ^|aapologia apology^a|, even ^|awhen legibly depressed^a| upon defenceless paper & thereby adding to the unhappiness of this ^|aour ^|bpopeyed^b|a| world^|a, scribblative!^a|1| and this too with cantreds of overplussing sisters^|1, the many & the chosen,^1| congested around & about you for acres
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and roods and poles or perches mutely braying for what would not cost you ^|1a centsworth of collarwork or^1| the price of a pang, just a lilt, let us say, of the oldest song in the wide wide world accompanied by a plain gold band. Sniffer of carrion, ^|1Seeker of ^|athe nest^a| evil in the bosom of a good word ^|apremature gravedigger,^a|1| you have well foretold ^|1by poring blindly upon your ^|aown many^a| sores and scalds and burns ^|aand,^a| blisters & moles & bruises,^1| death and disaster,º the dynamitisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by ^|1heat fire^1|, the return of much ^|1sweettempered^1| gunpowdered dust unto dust but it never struck your mudhead's obtundity that the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more spuds you peel, the more onions you weep over, ^|1the more beef you butch,^1| the more mutton you ^|1crackerhash crackerhack^1|, the more potherbs you pound, the hotter the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel it more & more the merrier smokes your new Irish stew. ^|1Another thing occurs to me^1| You, let me tell you, were designed to do a certain officeº (what I will not tell you) in a certain office (nor will I tell you where) during certain office hours from such a year to such a ^|1date hour on such a date^1| at so and so much a week per annum & do
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your little threepenny bit right here ^|1where you breathed the first breath of life^1|, same as we, long of us, where you set fire to my tailcoat and I'll hold the paraffin lamp under yours ^|1(I hope that at least is clear)^1| but, slackly shirking both your bullet & your billet, you beat it to sing us a song of alibi, ^|1nomad by lamplight, antinos, ^|aattempting amid everyone's ^|bsuppressed^b| laughter to conceal your coprophily by using words syllables of the same sound,^a| Irish^1| emigrant the wrong way ^|1out^1| sitting on your crooked sixpenny stile, ^|1semisemitic serendipitist,^1| you (will you ^|1for the love of Shakespeare^1| just help me with ^|1the epithet your epithets^1|?) unfrillfrocked quackfriar (yes, thanks, I think that describes you), Europasianised Afferyank! There grew up beside you, oaf, outofwork,º ^|1|a1 remove from an unwashed savage^a|, on his keeping & in yours,^1| that other, that pure one, he who was well known in heavenly circles above before he went aloft, a chum of the angels, a youth they ^|1so^1| particularly wanted as ^|1playmate ^|arompfellow gamefellow^a|1|,º ^|1that they asked his mother ^|ajust to let them for^a| little ^|aclay^a| brother to let him come to ^|atheir home ^|btheir house kindergarten^b|a|, please, & bring his scooter too and just 'tend they were ^|aall^a| real brothers in the big ^|ajustright^a| house where Dod lives,^1| a ^|1mothersmothered^1| model ^|1goodlooker^1| without a flaw whose spiritual toilettes were the talk of half the town, and him you laid low with one hand one fine May morning to find out how his innards worked. Ever hear of that monkey and the virgin heir of the Morrisons, eh, blethering ape? Malingerer ^|1in ^|aflexibility luxury^a|1|, what have you done with all the babyprams of cooked vegetables, the hatfuls of stewed fruit, the suitcases of coddled eggsº
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that you ^|1flexibly^1| cozened out of charitable ^|1kitchens butteries^1| by piping your eye & howling heavy ^|1with a hollow voice drop of your terrible poverty of mind^1| as how you was bad no end ^|1so you was, so help you,^1| with the chicken's gape and pas mal de siècle ^|1which, by the by, is the ^|aordinary emetic^a| French for grenadiers' drip^1|. Where are the little apples we lock up in the little saltbox? Where is that little alimony nestegg against our predictable rainy day? Is it not the fact (gainsay me, cakeeater!) that you squandered among underlings the overload of extravagance & made a multitude ^|1hungry ^|aof hottentots^a| crawsick^1| with ^|1your^1| crumbs? Am I not right? ^|1Don't tell me you are not a loanshark!^1| Look up, old son, ^|1be advised by me^1| & take your medicine! And remember golden silence means consent, Mr Anklegazer! ^|1Whisht! Come here till I tell you something in your ear. Look. Do you see your face in the glass? Look close. Bend down a moment till I. In your ear. Shem, You are mad.^1| Pariah, cannibal Cain, you who oathily forswore the womb that bore you and the paps you sometime sucked,º you who ever since have been one black mass of jigs & jimjams, haunted by a ^|1convulsionary^1| sense of not having been or being all that you might be or meant to have been, loº you ^|1then^1|, and thank God from the innermost depths of your ^|1uncontrite^1| heart, it is to you, ^|1firstborn & first ^|acause fruit^a| of woe, to you,^1| branded sheep, to you, pick of the wastepaper basket, ^|1to you alone, windblasted tree of the knowledge of evil,^1| ay, to you, unseen
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blusher in an obscene coalhole that your turfbrown mummy is acoming, running with her tidings, all the news of the great big world, ^|1with a beck and a ^|abend spring^a|, her rillringlets shaking,^1| little oldfashioned mummy, little wonderful mummy, ducking under bridges, bellhopping the weirs, ^|1dodging round a bit of bog,^1| rapidshooting round the ^|1corners bends^1|, by Tallaght's green hills and the pool of the phooka and a place they call it Blessington and slipping sly by Sallynoggin ^|1as happy as the day ^|awas is^a| wet,^1| babbling, bubbling, chattering to herself, ^|1deloothering the ^|along day ^|blivelong day fields on their elbows^b|a| with the sloothering slide of her,^1| giddygaddy graunyma gossipaceous Anna Livia.