Shem is as short for Shemus as ^|3Jim Jem^3| is joky for Jacob. A few toughnecks are still getatable who pretend that aboriginally he was of respectable connections (^|3blank an inlaw ^|aof blank to Mr ^|bBirdwood ^|cByrdwood Bbyrdwood^c|b| de Trop Blogggº^a|3| was among his ^|3most^3| distant ^|3cousins connections^3|) but every honest to goodness man in the land of today knows that his back life will not stand being written about in black and white. Putting truth and untruth together a shot may be made at what this hybrid actually ^|3looked like was like to look at^3|. Shem's bodily getup, it seems, included: ^|3an adze of a skull,^3| an eighth of an eye, the whole of a nose, one ^|3arm all false arm^3|, fortytwo hairs off his crown, eighteen to his mock lip, a quintet from his chin, the wrong shoulder higher than the right, all ears, not a foot to stand on, a handful of thumbs, a blind stomach, a deaf heart, a loose liver, two fifths of two buttocks, a stone and a half^|3, a ^|aroot manroot^a| of all evil^|a, a salmonkelt's thinskin, eelsblood in his cold toes, a bladder t Tristended^a|3| — so much so that young Master Shemmy at the very dawn of history seeing himself such and such, when playing with words in his nursery garden, asked of all his little brethren and sisters the first riddle of the universe: When is a man not a man? offering ^|3a the^3| prize of a ^|3juicy bittersweet^3| crab to the winner. One said when the heavens are rocking, a second said when other lips, a third said when he, no, when, hold on a second, when the fair land of Poland, the next one said when the angel of death kicks the bucket of life, still another said when the wine is in, and still another when lovely woman stoops to conquer, one of the littlest said me, me, Sem, when father papered the parlour, still one said when you are old and grey and full of sleep, and still another when office hours at last are over, and another when I was a boy with never a hole in my heart, another when yes he has no mananas, and one when pigs begin to fly. All were wrong, so Shem himself took the cake, the correct solution being ^|3— all give it up? —^3|: When he is a Sham.

Shem was a sham and a low sham and his lowness came out first in foodstuffs. So low was he that he preferred Gibsen's teatime salmon tinned, as inexpensive as pleasing, to the plumpest roeheavy lax or the friskiest parr or smolt troutlet that ever was gaffed between Leixlip and Island Bridge and many was the time he repeated ^|3in his botulism^3| that no junglegrown pineapple ever smacked like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias' cans. None of your inchthick blueblooded Balaclava beefsteaks or juicejelly legs of molten mutton or greasily gristly grunters' ^|3feet goupons^3| or slice upon slab of luscious goosebosom with lump after load of plumpudding stuffing all aswim in a
{f39, 171}
swamp of ^|3bogoak gray bogoak gravyº^3| for him! He even went away by himself and became a farsoonerite, saying he would far sooner muddle through the hash of lentils in Europe than meddle with Ireland's split little pea. Once when in a state of hopelessly helpless intoxication he strove to lift a citron peel to either nostril, hiccupping apparently ^|3impromptu impromptued by his glottel stop^3|, that he could live for ever by the smell, as the citr, as the cedron, like a cedar, of the founts, on mountains, with lemon on, of Lebanon. O, the lowness of him was beneath all up to that sunk to! No firewater or firstserved firstshot or gutburn gin or honest liberal unionist beer either. O dear no! Instead ^|3he the tragic gester^3| sobbed himself sick of life on some sort of a wheywhinging rhubarbarous yellagreen applejack squeezed from sour ^|3grapes grapefruice^3| and, to hear him ^|3in twixt^3| his ^|3sentimentalising cups sedimental cupslips^3| when he had absorbed too ^|3much of a feast many gourds of it^3| retching off to his almost as low withswillers, who always knew notwithstanding when they had enough and were rightly indignant at the wretch's hospitality when they
{f10, 136}
found to their horror they could not carry another drop, it came straight from the noble white fat, openwide sat, her why hide that, the winevat, of the most serene archduchess ^|3(if she'sº a duck she's a douches, snot her fault, nowisit?)^3|, ^|3artstouchups^{3| |3}fancy funny^3| you're grinning at, fancy you're in her yet, Fanny Urinia. ^|3|aIsn't Ain'tº^a| that swell, hey?^3| Talk about lowness! Any dog's quantity of it visibly oozed out thickly from this dirty little ^|3black blacking^3| beetle, for the very first instant the Kelly-Turnbull girl with her kodak spotted the as yet unremunerated national apostate, who was cowardly gun and camera shy, taking what he fondly thought was a short cut ^|3to Ameriga,º^3| after having buried a friend not so long before, by the wrong goods ^|3entrance exeunt^3| into Patatapapaveri's, fruiterers and musical florists, she knew he was a bad fast man by his walk on the spot.

Around that time one generally hoped or at any rate suspected he would early turn out badly, develop hereditary pulmonary T.B. ^|3andº do for himself one good time.^3| Nay, one pelting night blanketed folk, hearing a coarse song and splash off Eden Quay, sighed and rolled over, sure all was up, but, though he fell heavily and locally into debt, not even then could such an antinomian be true to type. With the devil's leave the born fraud ^|3cheated diddled^3| even death. You see, he was low. All the time he kept on treasuring with condign satisfaction each and every unkind word and if ever, during a conversazione ^|3commoted^3| in the nation's interest, delicate hints were thrown out to him ^|3about touching^3| his evil courses by some wellwishers vainly pleading ^|3by scriptural arguments^3| with the opprobrious papist ^|3about what aboutº trying^3|
{f10, 137}
to brace up and be a ^|3man men ^|a|binstead insteedº^b|a| of a dem scrounger, desh it all^3|, such as: Pray, what is
{f39, 173}
the meaning of that continental expression, if you ever came across it, we think it is a word ^|3something transpiciously^3| like canaille? or: Did you anywhere, ^|3captain kennel^3|, ^|3on rural rambles or^3| during your tales of travel happen to stumble upon a certain gay young nobleman answering to the name of Low Swine who lives on loans and is thirtyfive ^|3years yours^3| of age? without one sign of haste, like the supreme prig he was, he would pull a vacant landlubber's face and then, lisping to kill time, ^|3and swatting his deadbest to think what ^|aunder ^|bthe canopies of^b| God^a| would any decent ^|afellow son of a bitch^a| think,^3| begin to tell all the intelligentsia admitted to that ^|3conversazione conclamazzione^3| (since ^|3appreciated appreciable^3| physicians, trusted lawyers, ^|3prepaid belfry^3| politicians, philanthropists sitting on as many boards ^|3of directors round the peninsula^3| at the same time as possible) the whole lifelong story of his entire low existence, ^|3abusing his ^|adeceased^a| ancestors ^|awhoever they wherever the sods^a| were and one moment blowing great ^|aguns blunderguns^a| about his farfamed fine Poppamore, Mr Humhum, and another moment giving 3 jeers for his rotten little ghost of a Peppybeg, Mr Himmyshimmy,^3| giving unsolicited testimony on behalf of the absent as glib as eaveswater, to those present (who meanwhile ^|3with increasing lack of interest ^|ain his semantics,^a|3| allowed various subconscious smiles to ^|3travel drivel^3| slowly across their faces), unconsciously explaining, ^|3for inkstands,^3| with a patience bordering on the insane, the various meanings of all the different foreign ^|3phrases parts of speech^3| he misused and telling every lie unthinkable about all the
{f39, 174}
other people in the story leaving out, of course, foreconsciously, the simple word and person they had cornered him about until there was not a snoozer among them but was utterly undeceived in the heel of the reel by the recital of the rigmarole.

It went without saying that ^|3he the cull^3| disliked anything anyway approaching a plain straightforward standup or knockdown row and as often as he was called in to umpire any ^|3octagonal octugonal^3| argument among slangwhangers the accomplished washout always used to rub shoulders with the last
{f10, 138}
speaker and agree to every word as soon as half uttered^|3: ^|ayour servant,º^a| good, quite true, I'm ^|ayours yoush^a|, also good, ^|aquiso,º yourº sulphur:º^a|3| and then at once focus his whole unbalanced attention upon the next octagonist who managed to catch a listener's eye, asking and imploring him out of his piteous onewinker whether there was anything in the world he could do to please him and to overflow his ^|3tumbler tumbletantaliser^3| for him yet once more. One kailcannon night as ^|3very^3| recently as twenty years ago he was therefore treated with what closely resembled personal violence, being kicked ^|3alternately all unsuspectingly^3| through the deserted village ^|3of Tumblin-on-the-Leafy^3| from 82 ^|3Dublin Lane Mabbot's Mallº^3| as far as the lefthand eastend corner of Europa Parade by rival teams of argumentalists who finally, as ^|3really rahilly^3| they had been ^|3detained out rather late deteened out rawther la laetich^3|, thought they had better be streaking for home one and all disgustedly, instead of kicking him back ^|3andº awake^3|, reconciled ^|3(though they were as jealous as could be ^|acullions^a| about all the truffles they ^|atook brought^a| on him)^3| to a friendship, fast and furious, which merely arose out of ^|3his the noxious pervert's^3| perfect lowness. Again there was a hope that people,
{f39, 175}
looking on him with comparative contempt, after first giving him a roll in the dirt might pity and forgive him but the pleb was born low and sank lower till he sank out of sight.

Darkies never done tug that coon out to play flesh and blood games same as piccaninnies play all day, those old games we used to play with old Joe kicking her behind and before and the yellow girl kicking him behind old Joe,
{f39, 176}
games like Put the wind up the peeler, Hat in the ring, Healy Baba and the forty thieves, Soldier, soldier, will you marry me?, Sheila Harnett and her cow, I saw the toothbrush with Pat Farrell, Here's the fat to grease the priest's boots. Now it is notoriously known how on that surprisingly bloody Unity Sunday, when the grand germogall allstar bout was gaily the rage between our fightingmen extraordinary and Irish eyes of welcome were smiling up their sleeves, rank funk getting the better of him the scut ^|3in a bad fit of pyjamas^3| fled ^|3like a leveret^3| for his bare ^|3life lives ^|apursued by the scented curses of all the village belles and,^a|3| without having struck one blow ^|3and,º^3| corked himself up tight in his inkbottle house, badly the worse for drink, where he collapsed carefully under a bedtick from Switzer's ^|3with,^3| his face enveloped in a dead warrior's ^|3overcoat telemac^3|,
{f10, 140}
^|3with a whotwaterwottle
{f39, 177}
to at his feet,º to stoke his energy of waiting,º^3| moaning feebly that his ^|3punishment pawdry's purgatory^3| was more than a nigger man could bear, hemiparalysed by all the shemozzle, his cheeks and trousers changing colour every time a gat croaked. How is that for low, ladies and laymen? Why, whole continents rang with his lowness! Millions of women in dozens of countries (revolted demimondaines among them) at a bare mention exclaimed: O!

But would anyone, short of a madhouse, believe it? Neither of those clean little ^|3cherubs cherubum^3|, Nero or ^|3Nabuchodonosor Nobookishonesterº^3| himself, never nursed such a spoiled opinion of his monstrous marvellosity as did this mental and moral defective (here perhaps at his really lowest) who was known to belch rather than brag on one occasion^|3, while drinking heavily of spirits,º^3| to an interlocutor ^|3a latereº^3| he used to pal around with in ^|3the porchway of^3| a gipsy's bar ^|3(Shem ^|aalways^{a| |a}swearing blaspheming^|b,º so holy writ, billy Billy,^b|a| he would ^|atry, ^|bold^b| Belly, and^a| pay ^|ahim this ^|bone^b| congregant of his^a| fourpence four soups ^|aa month every ^|blast of the month lass of nexmouth, bully Bully, ^{b|a| |a|b}if he had the as a taste for aº^b| storik's fortytooth ony twenny minnies moe, Bolly,^a| toº listen ^|ato out ^a| his Ballade Imaginaire,º son some most dreadful stuff in a murderous handwriting)^3| that he was ^|3awoopfº^3| aware of no other ^|3person shaggyspickº, other Shakhisbeard,º^3| either ^|3exactly prexactly^3| unlike ^|3his polar andthisishis^3| or ^|3precisely procisely^3| the ^|3same shame^3| as ^|3woops as^3| what he fancied or guessed he was himself. After the thorough fright he got that bloody day, though every doorpost in muchtried Lucalizod was smeared with generous gore and every free for all cobbleway slippery with the blood of heroes crying
{f10, 141}
to heaven for others ^|3andº noahs and culvertsº agush with tears of joy^3|, ^|3the our^3| low waster never had the common baalamb's pluck to stir out and about while everyone else of the city throng, slashers and sliced alike, waded around, ^|3chanting the Gillooly chorus,^3| heads up, on their bonafide avocations while happy belongers to the fairer sex on their usual quest for higher things went stonestepping across the ^|3human bridge rainbow bridge^3| set up over the slop by Messrs a charitable government, for the only once he did take a tompeep through a threedraw ^|3eighteen-hawkspowerº^{3| |3}telescope telescoopº^3| out of his westernmost keyhole^|3, spitting at the impenetrable weather,º^3| with an eachway hope in his shivering soul of finding out for himself whether true conciliation was forging ahead or falling back and why he found himself at pointblank range blinking down the barrel of an irregular revolver of the bulldog with a purpose pattern handled by an unknown quarreler who, supposedly, had been told off to shade and shoot shy Shem should the shit show his shiny nose out awhile to look facts in the face before being hosed and creased by five or six of the gayboys.

What was this interestingly low human type really at? The answer is: a drug and drunkery addict growing megalomane at a loose end. This explains the litany of ^|3letters septuncial lettertrumpets^3|, honorific, highpitched,
{f10, 142}
erudite, neoclassical, which he so loved as ^|3patricianly^3| to manuscribe after his name. It would have diverted, if ever seen, the shuddersome spectacle of this semidemented zany amid the inspissated grime of his den making believe to read his eminently unreadable bluebook ^|3(even yet it can't be repeated!)^3|, turning over three sheets at a time, ^|3telling himself delightedly that every splurge on the vellum he blundered over was ^|aa an aisling^a| vision more gorgeous than the one before, a rose cottage by the sea for nothing for ever, a ladies'º ^|atryon^a| hosiery ^|asale raffle^a| at ^|aArnott's liberty^a|, a sewerful of guineagold wine ^|aand ten ounce oysters worth a billion a bite:^a| an entire operahouse of ^|aenthusiastic^a| noblewomen flinging every ^|acoronetcrimsoned^a| stitch they had on at his feet,º one after the other, when he sang the topnote in After the Ball ^|a(geewhiz, jew ear that far! ^|bsoap ewer!^b| juiceº like a boyd!)^a| for fully five minutes infinitely better than Barton McGuckin, with a ^|a|bgorgeous scrumptious^b|a| cocked hat and ^|a3^a| plumes on his head and a crozier in the other hand,^3| but what with the murky light, the botchy print, the tattered cover, the jigjagged page, the fumbling fingers, the foxtrotting fleas, the lieabed lice, the scum ^|3in his eye on his tongue^3|, ^|3the drop in his eye, the lump in his throat,^3| the drink in his pottle, the itch in his palm, the wail of his wind, the grief from his nose, the dig in his ribs, ^|3the age of his arteries,^3| the weight of his breath, ^|3the fog of his brainfag, the tic of his conscience,^3| the height of his rage, the gush of his fundament, the fire in his gorge, the tickle of his tail, the rats in his garret, the hullabaloo and the dust in his ears^|3,º since it took him a month to steal a march^3| he was hardset to memorise more than a word a week. Was there ever heard of such lowdown blackguardism? Positively it
{f10, 143}
woollies one to think over it. Yet the bumpersprinkler used to boast aloud alone to himself ^|3when Hoy was corrected with the blackboard^3|
{f39, 181}
how he had been ^|3put toed^3| out of all the ^|3best schicker^3| families of the ^|3Klondykers ⁽⁺Klondykers, Klondykersº^{+) |x|a}bigabig ⁽⁺bigaboss^{+)a| (+}Affenduliums, splenthimunnium grandbig seigniors⁺⁾, ⁽⁺notables,^+)x|3| from Pioupiouland, Swabspays, the land of Nod, Shruggers' Country, ^|3Pension^3| Danubierhome and Barbaropolis, who had settled in the capital city after its metropoliarchialisation, ordered off the ^|3gorgeous^3| premises in most cases on account of his smell which all the cookmaids objected to as resembling the smell that came out of the sink. Instead of ^|3tutoring chuthoring^3| those ^|3best finest^3| families plain wholesome handwriting (a thing he never possessed of his own) what do you think ^|3he Vulgariano^3| did but study with stolen fruit how cutely to copy all their various styles of signature so as one day to utter a colossal forged cheque on the public for his own private profit until, as just related, the Dublin United Scullerymaids' and Househelps' Sorority turned him down and ^|3unitedly kicked assisted nature by unitedly kicking^3| the source of annoyance out of the place altogether in the heat of the moment, ^|3holding one another's nose ^|a(for no-one, hound or scrublady, dared whiff him at close range)^a| and^3| making some pointed remarks as they did so ^|3about aboon^3| the low ^|3way he why a^3| stunk.

One cannot even begin to figure out how low in reality ^|3such a creature the Drumcondriac, called ^|aSem ^|bSemm Hamish^b|a|,º^3| really was. Who can say how many unsigned first copies of original masterworks, how many pseudostylic
{f39, 182}
shamiana, how few or how many of the most venerated public impostures, how very many piously forged palimpsests, slipped in the first place by this morbid process from his plagiarist pen?

Be that as it may, but for his ^|3nose's gnose's^3| glow as it slid within an inch of its page Nibs never would have ^|3penned a word to paper quilled a seriph to sheepskin^3|. By that rosy ^|3lamp's lampoon's^3| effluvious burning he scribbled and scratched nameless shamelessness about everybody ever he met, even ^|3sheltering for an hour or so from a spring sharing aº^3| shower under the dogs' umbrella of a public wall, while all over and up and down ^|3both the four^3| margins of this rancid Shem stuff the evilsmeller ^|3(who was devoted to S_unread Sardanapalus)^3| used to ^|3draw stipple^3| endlessly inartistic portraits of himself as a ^|3strikingly heartbreakingly^3| handsome young man with love lyrics ^|3for the ^|agoils goyls^a|3| in his ^|3eyes eyols^3|, a ^|3tiptop plaintiff's^3| tenor ^|3voice voarse^3|, a ducal income of one hundred and thirtytwo pounds a ^|3year yard^3| derived from ^|3landed stranded^3| estate, Oxford manners, cutting a great dash in a brandnew two-guinea dress suit ^|3and a burled shirt^3| hired for a ^|3Sunday evening party Furskayº evenin merry pawty^3|, ^|3and a anna^3| lovely long pair of inky Italian ^|3moustaches glittering moostarshes glistering^3| with boric vaseline and frangipani. ^|3Pah!^3| How unwhisperably low!

The house of Shem or Shame, known as the ^|3haunted inkbottle Haunted Inkbottle, ^|a|b1 one^b|a| Brimstone Walk, Asia in Ireland,^3| as it was infested with the raps, in which he groped through life at the expense of the taxpayers, ^|3injected dejected^3| into day and night ^|3with jesuistº bark and bitter bite,º^3| by ^|3practically full and^3| forty ^|3quacks ^|aquisisanas quisisanos^a|3|, ^|3day by day every day in everyone's way^3| more exceeding in violent abuse of self and others, was the worst, it is ^|3believed hoped^3|, even in our western playboyish world for pure ^|3mousefarm^3| filth. The warped flooring of the lair ^|3and soundconducting walls thereof^3| was persianly literatured with burst loveletters, telltale stories, stickyback snaps, doubtful eggshells, you owe mes, fluefoul smut, fallen lucifers, vestas which had served, showered ornaments, borrowed brogues, reversible jackets, blackeye lenses, ^|3family jars,^3| falsehair shirts, Godforsaken scapulars,
{f10, 145}
neverworn breeches, ^|3cutthrough cutthroat^3| ties, counterfeit ^|3francs franks^3|, best intentions, curried notes, upset ^|3latten^3| tintacks, unused mill and stumbling stones, twisted quills, ^|3painful digests,^3| magnifying wineglasses, solid objects cast at phantoms, once current puns, ^|3new quashed^3| quotatoes, messes of mottage, unquestionable issue papers, seedy ejaculations, limerick damns, crocodile tears, spilt ink, blasphematory spits, stale chestnuts, schoolgirls', young ladies', milkmaids', washerwomen's, shopkeepers' wives', merry widows', ^|3three ex^3| nuns', ^|3one abbess's vice abbesses'º^3|, ^|3prudent pro^3| virgins', ^|3impudent super^3| whores', silent sisters', Charleys' aunts', grandmothers', mothers-in-laws', fostermothers', godmothers' garters, tress clippings from right and left, worms of snot, toothsome pickings, cans of Swiss condensed bilk, highbrow lotions, kisses from the antipodes, presents from pickpockets, borrowed plumes, relaxable handgrips, princess promises, lees of wine, deoxodised carbons, broken wafers, unloosed shoe latchets, ^|3convertible collars,º^3| crooked strait waistcoats, fresh ^|3views of hell horrors from Hades^3|, globules of mercury, undeleted glete, ^|3glass eyes for an eye, false teeth for a tooth,^3|
{f39, 184}
war moans, special sighs, longsufferings of longstanding, ahs ohs ouis sis jas jos gias neys thaws sos, yeses and yeses and yeses, to which, if one has the stomach to add the breakages, upheavals, distortions, inversions, of all this chambermade music, one stands^|3, given a grain of goodwill,^3| a fair chance of actually seeing the whirling dervish ^|3(+of this fool's paradox⁺⁾º^{3| |3}exiled selfexiledº^3| in upon his ego, noondayterrorised to skin and bone by an ineluctable ^|3shadow phantom,º^3| writing the history of himself in furniture.

Of course our low hero was a selfvaleter by choice of need so up he got ^|3up^3| whatever is meant by a kitchenette and fowlhouse for the sake of eggs ^|3which ^|ahe the jokesmith ^a| brooled and cocked and potched in an athanor with cinnamon and locusts and beeswax and liquorice and Carageen moss and blaster of Barry's and Yellownan's embrocation and stardust and sinner's tears, ^|achanting his cantraps,^a| abracadabra calubra culorumº ^|a(hisº oewfs à la Madame Gabrielle de l'Eglise, his oewfs à la Mistress B. de B. Meinfeldesº, his oewfs à la Sulphate de
{f10, 146}
Soude, his oewfs sowtay à la Monsei sowmonayº à la Monseigneur, his soufflosion à la Mère Puard, his Frideggs à la Tricarême)^a|,º^3| in what was meant for a closet. His ^|3costive Satan's^3|
{f39, 185}
nature never needed such an alcove so, when Robber and Mumsell, the paper dictators, boycotted him of all muttonsuet candles and stationery for any purpose, he went away and made synthetic ink and unruled pages for his own use out of his wits' end. You ask^|3, in Sam Hill,^3| how? Let manner and matter of it for these our sporting times be cloaked up in the language of blushfed cardinals that an Anglican ordinal, not reading his own rude tongue, may ever behold the brand of scarlet on the brow of her of Babylon and feel not the pink one in his own damned cheek.

Primum opifex, altus prosator, ad terram viviparam et cunctipotentem nec ullo pudori nec venia discinctis perizomatis et natibus nudis uti nati fuissent, sese adpropinquans, flens et gemens, in manum suam evacuavit (highly prosy, crap in his hand, sorry!), postea, ^|3animale nigro^3| exoneratus, classicum pulsans, stercus proprium, quod appellavit deiectiones meas, in vasum olim honorabile tristitiae posuit, eodem lente ac melliflue minxit, psalmum qui incipit: Lingua mea calamus scribae velociter scribentis: magna voce cantitans (did a piss, says he was dejected, asks to be exonerated), demum ex stercore turpi cum divi Orionis iucunditate mixto, cocto, frigorique exposito, encaustum sibi fecit indelibilem (faked O'Ryan's, the indelible ink).

With this double dye ^|3through the bowels of his misery,^3| minutely, nastily, appropriately, ^|3he the first and last ^|ashemist alshemist^a|3| wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, his own body, till ^|3by its corrosive sublimation^3| one
{f39, 186}
human integument slowly unfolded universal history (thereby, he said, reflecting from his own individual
{f10, 147}
person life unlivable, transaccidentated through the slow fires of consciousness into a dividual chaos, perilous, potent, common to all flesh, human only, mortal) but with each word that would not pass away the ^|3self squidself^3| which he had ^|3hidden squirtscreened^3| from the ^|3crystalline^3| world grew darker and darker in its outlook. So perhaps after all on his last public misappearance^|3, ^|aonº the deathday of Saint Ignaceous,º^a| circling the squareº ^|aand brandishing his ^|bbellbearing^b| pen, the shining keyman of the door of blank^a|,^3| the blond cop who thought it was ink was out of his depth but ^|3right bright^3| in the main. Petty constable Sigurdsen it was, who had been detailed to save him from the effects of lynch law and mobmauling ^|3on looks^3|, that greeted the tenderfoot ^|3on his way from a prostitute^3| just as he was butting in ^|3round the corner of bad times^3| with a hideful through his ^|3door fongster^3|, saying as usual: Where ladies have they that a dog meansort herring? Search me, the incapable reparteed and in he skittled. The allwhite ^|3peace officer poors guardian^3| was literally astounded ^|3over the sake^3| and staggered ^|3too thereto^3| in his ^|3imagination imaginations^3| at the capacity of his wineskin and even more so ^|3when informed by that human outcome of dirt and drink during, uponº looking his astonishments,º it was said him fun the concerned humanº outgift of dirt med drink^{3| |3}that he was merely bringing home two gallons of porter to his mother how that he was namely coon at bringherº at home two gallons full poultry till his murder^3|.
{f10, 148}
^|3Polthergeistkotzdondherhoploits!^3| What mother? Whose porter? Why ^|3merely namely coon at^3|? But enough of such porterblack lowness, too base for printink! We cannot stay here for the ^|3rest residence^3| of our lives discussing Mr Ham of Tenman's thirst.

Stand forth, come boldly in your true colours (for no longer will I ^|3employ follow you through^3| the inspired form of the third person singular but address myself to you direct), stand forth, jolly me, move me to laughter ere you be put back for ever till I give you your talkingto! Shem Macadamson, you know me and I know you and all your shemeries! Where have you been ^|3all this quite a while, my tooraladdy? How have you been this hell of a time, my tooraladdy? How have you been^3| enjoying yourself
{f39, 188}
all the morning since your last ^|3bad wetbed^3| confession? ^|3Let me see. ^|aIt is looking pretty black against you, sonny.^a|3| You were bred, fed, fostered and fattened from holy childhood up in this two-easter island on the piejaw of hilarious heaven and roaring the other place and now, forsooth, a nogger among the blankards of this dastard century, you have become a raw doubter in gods known and unknown, nay, condemned fool, anarch, egoarch, heresiarch, you have reared your disunited kingdom on the vacuum of your own far more than dubious soul. ^|3Do you hold yourself then for some god in the manger that you will neither serve norº let serve, pray nor let pray?^3| While yet an adolescent (what do I say?), while still puerile in your tubsuit with buttonlegs, you got a handsome present of ^|3a selfraising^3| syringe and twin feeders (you know, my friend, to your cost as well as I do, and don't try to hide it, the mechanism I am now poking at) and the wheeze kind of was you should ^|3(if you were as ^|agood ^|bfine bould^b|a| a ^|aman stroke^a| now as the curate that christened you,º ^|asonny ^|bkick-the-candle dout-the-candle!^b|a|)^3| repopulate the land of your birth and count up your progeny by the hundred head and the hundred thousand but you thwarted
{f39, 189}
the pious wish of your godmother on countless occasions of failing and have added the morosity of your delectations ^|3—º a philtred love, blank blank blank^3| to Lubbock's other pleasures of life, even ^|3inflicting extruding^3| your ^|3strabismal^3| apologia, when legibly depressed, upon defenceless paper and thereby adding to the already unhappiness of this our popeyed world, scribblative! — all that too with cantreds of overplussing females, the many as many as the chosen, congested around and about you for acres and roods and poles or perches, mutely braying for what would not have cost you ten cents of collarwork or the price of one 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, premature gravedigger, ^|3resurrecter of lazars,º^3| seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word, you^|3, who sleep at our vigil and fast for our feast, you with your dislocated reasonº^3| have cutely foretold by blind poring upon your many ^|3sores and scalds and burns, blisters and moles and chilblains scalds and burns and blisters, impetiginous soresº and pustules^3|, ^|3by the auspiceº of that raven cloud, your shade, and by the auguryº of rooks in ^|aparliament parlament^a|,º^3| death with every disaster, the dynamitisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by blazes, the return of a lot
{f39, 190}
of sweettempered gunpowdered dust unto dust, but it never struck your mudhead's
{f10, 150}
obtundity that the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel, the more onions you weep over, the more beef you butch, the more mutton you crackerhack, the more potherbs you pound, the ^|3hotter fiercer^3| the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel it more and more the merrier smokes your new Irish stew.

Another thing occurs to me. You, let me tell you, were very ordinarily designed to do a certain office (what, I will not tell you) in a certain office (nor will I say where) during certain office hours from such a year to such an hour on such and such a date at so and so much a week per annum and do your little threepenny bit right here where you drew the first gasp in your life, same as we, long of us, where you set fire to my tailcoat and I'll held the paraffin lamp under yours (I hope that at least is clear) but, slackly shirking both your bullet and your billet, you beat it like billy O to sing us a song of alibi, nomad, mooner by lamplight, antinos, ^|3attempting shemming^3| amid everyone's ^|3suppressed repressed^3| laughter to conceal your coprophily by using^|3, like a ^|athoroughgoing thoroughpaste^a| prosodite,^{3| |3}syllables monosyllables^3| of the same ^|3sound mass^3|, an Irish emigrant the wrong way out, sitting on your crooked
{f39, 191}
sixpenny stile, an unfrillfrocked quackfriar, you (will you for the love of Shakespeare just help me with the epithet?) semisemitic serendipitist, you (thanks, I think that describes you) Europasianised Afferyank!

There grew up beside you, oaf, outofwork, one remove from an unwashed savage, on his keeping and in yours, that
{f10, 151}
other, that pure one, he who was well known to heavenly circles before he sped aloft, a chum of the angels, a youth they so particularly wanted as gamefellow that they asked his mother for little clay brother to let him ^|3come to kindergarten, please, and bring tome to Tindertarten, pease, and bing^3| his scooter too and 'tend they were all real brothers in the big justright home where Dod lives, that mothersmothered model, that goodlooker with not 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 in luxury, what have you done with all the babyprams of cooked vegetables, the hatfuls of stewed fruit, the suitcases of coddled eggs, that you cozened so flexibly out of charitable butteries by ^|3howling yowling^3| heavy with a hollow voice drop of your horrible awful poverty of mind and as how you was bad no end, so you was, so ^|3help whelp^3| you, with the chicken's gape and pas mal de siècle which, by the by, is the ordinary emetic French for grenadier's drip. ^|3To let you have your plank and your bonewash (O,º the sufferings of you!), to give you your pound of platinum and a thousand acres a year (O, you were excruciated!),º to let you have your ^|aSa_unread Sarday^a| spree and ^|aSundae holinight^a| sleep andº leave to lie till Paraskiveeº (O,º your estomach!).º Weep waterfalls for all me^|a, Pain the Shamman^a|! Oft in the night ^|athey will will they^a| wallow for the vanished hand, I say,
{f10, 152}
^|athe them^a| bearded jezebellesº you hired to rob you, while on your sodden straw you impolitely you encored ^|a(Airish! Airish!)^{a| |a}hornmade yon those sacred^a| dreams of the flushpots of Euston and the ^|adangling hanging^a| garments of Marylebone. ^|aBut the dormer moon she ^|bsmiled ^|csailed smiled^c|b| selene and the skysigns knickered:º who's whinging we?^a|3| 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
{f39, 193}
you squandered among underlings the overload of your extravagance and made a multitude of Hottentots crawsick with your crumbs? Am I not right? Don't tell me you are not a loanshark! Look up, old son, be advised by me and take your medicine! ^|3Just a little tonic^|a, my gem of all jokes,^a| to make you go green in the face.^3| And remember that golden silence gives consent, Mr Anklegazer! Whisht! Come here till I tell you a thing in your ear. Look! Do you see your ^|3face dial^3| in the ^|3glass. rockingglass, Mister Studiosus?º^3| Look well! Bend down a second till I! ^|3It's secret!º^3| In your ear. Sh! Shem, you are. Sh! You are mad!

Pariah, cannibal Cain, you who oathily forswore the womb that bore you and the paps you sometime sucked, you who ever since have been one black mass of jigs and jimjams, haunted by a convulsionary sense
{f10, 153}
of not having been or being all that you might have been or meant to be,
{f39, 194}
^|3bewailing like a man that innocence which you could not defend like a woman^3|, lo, it is to you then, and thank God from the innermost depths of your incontrite heart for it is to you, firstborn and firstfruit of woe, to you, branded sheep, to you, pick of the wastepaperbasket, to you alone, windblasted tree of the knowledge of beautiful and evil, ay, to you, unseen blusher in an obscene coalhole, that your turfbrown mummy is acoming, running with her tidings, all the news of the great big world, with a beck, with a spring, all her rillringlets shaking, little oldfashioned mummy, little wonderful mummy, ducking under bridges, bellhopping the weirs, dodging by a bit of bog, rapidshooting round the bends, by Tallaght's green hills and the pool of the phooka and a place they call it Blessington and
{f39, 195}
slipping sly by Sallynoggin, as happy as the day is wet, babbling, bubbling, chattering to herself, deloothering the fields on their elbows ^|3leaning^3| with the sloothering slide of her, giddygaddy grannyma, gossipaceous Anna Livia!