<p>So Terry brought the three pints.</p>
<p>—Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen.</p>
<p>—<i>Slan leat</i>, says he.</p>
<p>—Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen.</p>
<p>Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small
fortune to keep him in drinks.</p>
<p>—Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe.</p>
<p>—Friend of yours, says Alf.</p>
<p>—Nannan? says Joe. The mimber?</p>
<p>—I won't mention any names, says Alf.</p>
<p>—I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with
William Field, M. P., the cattle traders.</p>
<p>—Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling
of all countries and the idol of his own.</p>
<p>So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and the
cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen sending
them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his sheepdip for the
scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for
timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a knacker's yard. Walking
about with his book and pencil here's my head and my heels are coming till
Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier.
Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was
telling me in the hotel the wife used to be in rivers of tears some times
with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over
her. Couldn't loosen her farting strings but old cod's eye was waltzing
around her showing her how to do it. What's your programme today? Ay.
Humane methods. Because the poor animals suffer and experts say and the
best known remedy that doesn't cause pain to the animal and on the sore
spot administer gently. Gob, he'd have a soft hand under a hen.</p>
<p>Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for us.
When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then comes
good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her fresh egg.
Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook.</p>
<p>—Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to
London to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons.</p>
<p>—Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see
him, as it happens.</p>
<p>—Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight.</p>
<p>—That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr
Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure?</p>
<p>—Nannan's going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question
tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the
park. What do you think of that, citizen? <i>The Sluagh na h-Eireann</i>.</p>
<p>Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of my
honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right
honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that these
animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming as
to their pathological condition?</p>
<p>Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in
possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole house.
I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the
honourable member's question is in the affirmative.</p>
<p>Mr Orelli O'Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued for
the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the Phoenix
park?</p>
<p>Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative.</p>
<p>Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman's famous Mitchelstown
telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury bench? (O! O!)</p>
<p>Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question.</p>
<p>Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don't hesitate to shoot.</p>
<p>(Ironical opposition cheers.)</p>
<p>The speaker: Order! Order!</p>
<p>(The house rises. Cheers.)</p>
<p>—There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival.
There he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The
champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your
best throw, citizen?</p>
<p>—<i>Na bacleis</i>, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There
was a time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.</p>
<p>—Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight
better.</p>
<p>—Is that really a fact? says Alf.</p>
<p>—Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Did you not know that?</p>
<p>So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of lawn
tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and
building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course Bloom had
to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise
was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the
bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: <i>Look at, Bloom. Do you see that
straw? That's a straw</i>. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an
hour so he would and talk steady.</p>
<p>A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of <i>Brian
O'ciarnain's</i> in <i>Sraid na Bretaine Bheag</i>, under the auspices of
<i>Sluagh na h-Eireann</i>, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and
the importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and
ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The
venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the attendance
was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a
magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting
and instructive discussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued
as to the desirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports
of our ancient Panceltic forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected
worker in the cause of our old tongue, Mr Joseph M'Carthy Hynes, made an
eloquent appeal for the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and
pastimes, practised morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to
revive the best traditions of manly strength and prowess handed down to us
from ancient ages. L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause
and hisses, having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the
discussion to a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty
plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy
rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis' evergreen verses (happily
too familiar to need recalling here) <i>A nation once again</i> in the
execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear
of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish
Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were
heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only
our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its
superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was
vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be
noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of
the press and the bar and the other learned professions. The proceedings
then terminated.</p>
<p>Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L. L.
D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S. Sp.;
the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev. P. J.
Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr.
Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T.
Maher, S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery, V.
F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O. M.; the
rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the rev. M. A.
Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr M'Manus, V. G.;
the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. D. Scally, P. P.; the
rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy canon Gorman, P. P.; the
rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc.</p>
<p>—Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that
Keogh-Bennett match?</p>
<p>—No, says Joe.</p>
<p>—I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.</p>
<p>—Who? Blazes? says Joe.</p>
<p>And says Bloom:</p>
<p>—What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training
the eye.</p>
<p>—Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run
up the odds and he swatting all the time.</p>
<p>—We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put
English gold in his pocket.</p>
<p>—-True for you, says Joe.</p>
<p>And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the
blood, asking Alf:</p>
<p>—Now, don't you think, Bergan?</p>
<p>—Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was
only a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating.
See the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God,
he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made him
puke what he never ate.</p>
<p>It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled
to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he was
by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by superlative skill
in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both
champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret in
the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of rights
and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet's nose,
and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to business, leading off
with a powerful left jab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by
shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw. The redcoat
ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a left hook, the body punch being
a fine one. The men came to handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got
his man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler
punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his
corner where he was liberally drenched with water and when the bell went
came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic
Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it.
The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee
twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his
footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during
which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from his
opponent's mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a
terrific left to Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a
knockout clean and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser
was being counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in
the towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of
the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with
delight.</p>
<p>—He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's
running a concert tour now up in the north.</p>
<p>—He is, says Joe. Isn't he?</p>
<p>—Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer
tour, you see. Just a holiday.</p>
<p>—Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe.</p>
<p>—My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a
success too.</p>
<p>He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent.</p>
<p>Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the cocoanut
and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the tootle on the
flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that
sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers. Old
Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what? The
water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the bucko that'll organise
her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddareesh.</p>
<p>Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There
grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The
gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. The
chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms.</p>
<p>And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O'Molloy's, a comely hero of
white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty's counsel learned in the
law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of Lambert.</p>
<p>—Hello, Ned.</p>
<p>—Hello, Alf.</p>
<p>—Hello, Jack.</p>
<p>—Hello, Joe.</p>
<p>—God save you, says the citizen.</p>
<p>—Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned?</p>
<p>—Half one, says Ned.</p>
<p>So J. J. ordered the drinks.</p>
<p>—Were you round at the court? says Joe.</p>
<p>—Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he.</p>
<p>—Hope so, says Ned.</p>
<p>Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list and
the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's.
Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their
eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders.
Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would
know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his
boots out of the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and done
says I. Gob, he'll come home by weeping cross one of those days, I'm
thinking.</p>
<p>—Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p:
up.</p>
<p>—Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective.</p>
<p>—Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court
only Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting
examined first.</p>
<p>—Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I'd give anything to
hear him before a judge and jury.</p>
<p>—Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson.</p>
<p>—Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character.</p>
<p>—Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in
evidence against you.</p>
<p>—Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not
<i>compos mentis</i>. U. p: up.</p>
<p><i>—Compos</i> your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he's
balmy? Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his
hat on with a shoehorn.</p>
<p>—Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an
indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law.</p>
<p>—Ha ha, Alf, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife.</p>
<p>—Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half
and half.</p>
<p>—How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he...</p>
<p>—Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither
fish nor flesh.</p>
<p>—Nor good red herring, says Joe.</p>
<p>—That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what
that is.</p>
<p>Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on
account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old
stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody
povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him,
bringing down the rain. And she with her nose cockahoop after she married
him because a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the pope.
Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, the
signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the Holy
Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street. And who was he, tell
us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings a week, and
he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to the world.</p>
<p>—And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to
be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my
opinion an action might lie.</p>
<p>Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our pints
in peace. Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself.</p>
<p>—Well, good health, Jack, says Ned.</p>
<p>—Good health, Ned, says J. J.</p>
<p>—-There he is again, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Where? says Alf.</p>
<p>And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter and
the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as
they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a
secondhand coffin.</p>
<p>—How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe.</p>
<p>—Remanded, says J. J.</p>
<p>One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James Wought
alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying he'd
give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see any green in the
white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? Swindled them all,
skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and his own kidney too.
J. J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew Zaretsky or something
weeping in the witnessbox with his hat on him, swearing by the holy Moses
he was stuck for two quid.</p>
<p>—Who tried the case? says Joe.</p>
<p>—Recorder, says Ned.</p>
<p>—Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two
eyes.</p>
<p>—Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about
arrears of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he'll
dissolve in tears on the bench.</p>
<p>—Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the
dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for
the corporation there near Butt bridge.</p>
<p>And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry:</p>
<p>—A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many
children? Ten, did you say?</p>
<p>—Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid.</p>
<p>—And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court
immediately, sir. No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. How dare you,
sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking
industrious man! I dismiss the case.</p>
<p>And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and in
the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the
daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first quarter, it
came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the halls of law.
There master Courtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave his rede and
master Justice Andrews, sitting without a jury in the probate court,
weighed well and pondered the claim of the first chargeant upon the
property in the matter of the will propounded and final testamentary
disposition <i>in re</i> the real and personal estate of the late lamented
Jacob Halliday, vintner, deceased, versus Livingstone, an infant, of
unsound mind, and another. And to the solemn court of Green street there
came sir Frederick the Falconer. And he sat him there about the hour of
five o'clock to administer the law of the brehons at the commission for
all that and those parts to be holden in and for the county of the city of
Dublin. And there sat with him the high sinhedrim of the twelve tribes of
Iar, for every tribe one man, of the tribe of Patrick and of the tribe of
Hugh and of the tribe of Owen and of the tribe of Conn and of the tribe of
Oscar and of the tribe of Fergus and of the tribe of Finn and of the tribe
of Dermot and of the tribe of Cormac and of the tribe of Kevin and of the
tribe of Caolte and of the tribe of Ossian, there being in all twelve good
men and true. And he conjured them by Him who died on rood that they
should well and truly try and true deliverance make in the issue joined
between their sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar and true
verdict give according to the evidence so help them God and kiss the book.
And they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, and they swore by the
name of Him Who is from everlasting that they would do His rightwiseness.
And straightway the minions of the law led forth from their donjon keep
one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended in consequence of
information received. And they shackled him hand and foot and would take
of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge against him for he was
a malefactor.</p>
<p>—Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to
Ireland filling the country with bugs.</p>
<p>So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, telling
him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first but if he
would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high and holy by
this and by that he'd do the devil and all.</p>
<p>—Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have
repetition. That's the whole secret.</p>
<p>—Rely on me, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland.
We want no more strangers in our house.</p>
<p>—O, I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just
that Keyes, you see.</p>
<p>—Consider that done, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Very kind of you, says Bloom.</p>
<p>—The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come
in. We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon
robbers here.</p>
<p>—Decree <i>nisi,</i> says J. J.</p>
<p>And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a
spider's web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling
after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and
when.</p>
<p>—A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of
all our misfortunes.</p>
<p>—And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the <i>Police
Gazette</i> with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.</p>
<p>—Give us a squint at her, says I.</p>
<p>And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off
of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct of
society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty
but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her bloomers
misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling for her tickles and Norman
W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be late after
she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor.</p>
<p>—O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!</p>
<p>—There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef
off of that one, what?</p>
<p>So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on him
as long as a late breakfast.</p>
<p>—Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action?
What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide
about the Irish language?</p>
<p>O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the
puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that
which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city,
second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due
prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn counsel
whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into honour
among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael.</p>
<p>—It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal
Sassenachs and their <i>patois.</i></p>
<p>So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till you
heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your blind
eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a
nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and
their colonies and their civilisation.</p>
<p>—Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with them!
The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged
sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature worthy of the
name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us. Tonguetied sons of
bastards' ghosts.</p>
<p>—The European family, says J. J....</p>
<p>—They're not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin
Egan of Paris. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language anywhere
in Europe except in a <i>cabinet d'aisance.</i></p>
<p>And says John Wyse:</p>
<p>—Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.</p>
<p>And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo:</p>
<p>—<i>Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!</i></p>
<p>He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the
medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan <i>Lamh
Dearg Abu</i>, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty
valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster
silent as the deathless gods.</p>
<p>—What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that
had lost a bob and found a tanner.</p>
<p>—Gold cup, says he.</p>
<p>—Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry.</p>
<p><i>—Throwaway,</i> says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And
the rest nowhere.</p>
<p>—And Bass's mare? says Terry.</p>
<p>—Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two
quid on my tip <i>Sceptre</i> for himself and a lady friend.</p>
<p>—I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on <i>Zinfandel</i> that Mr
Flynn gave me. Lord Howard de Walden's.</p>
<p>—Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. <i>Throwaway,</i>
says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy name
is <i>Sceptre.</i></p>
<p>So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was
anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck
with his mangy snout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard.</p>
<p>—Not there, my child, says he.</p>
<p>—Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for
the other dog.</p>
<p>And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom
sticking in an odd word.</p>
<p>—Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they
can't see the beam in their own.</p>
<p>—<i>Raimeis</i>, says the citizen. There's no-one as blind as the
fellow that won't see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing
twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost
tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! And
our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax and our
damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our tanneries and
our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our Huguenot poplin
that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk and our Foxford
tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross,
nothing like it in the whole wide world. Where are the Greek merchants
that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar now grabbed by
the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple to sell in Wexford at the
fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine,
peltries, Connemara marble, silver from Tipperary, second to none, our
farfamed horses even today, the Irish hobbies, with king Philip of Spain
offering to pay customs duties for the right to fish in our waters. What
do the yellowjohns of Anglia owe us for our ruined trade and our ruined
hearths? And the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with
millions of acres of marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption?</p>
<p>—As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or
Heligoland with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the
land. Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I
was reading a report of lord Castletown's...</p>
<p>—Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the
chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage.
Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills
of Eire, O.</p>
<p>—Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan.</p>
<p>The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon at
the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger
of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley.
Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly
Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde
Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia
Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud
Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee
Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond,
the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty
Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest,
Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the
ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by her father,
the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation
carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming
grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple
flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and
hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer
and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes
in the same tone, a dainty <i>motif</i> of plume rose being worked into
the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the jadegreen
toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor Enrique
Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability and, in addition to
the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking
arrangement of <i>Woodman, spare that tree</i> at the conclusion of the
service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre <i>in Horto</i> after the
papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of
hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries,
mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will
spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest.</p>
<p>—And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with
Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were
pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway.</p>
<p>—And will again, says Joe.</p>
<p>—And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the
citizen, clapping his thigh, our harbours that are empty will be full
again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom of
Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with a fleet
of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the O'Kennedys
of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with the emperor
Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the first Irish
battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to the fore, none
of your Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, the flag of the
province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue field, the three
sons of Milesius.</p>
<p>And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like a
tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody life
is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude
in Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly Maguires
looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an
evicted tenant.</p>
<p>—Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have?</p>
<p>—An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion.</p>
<p>—Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you
asleep?</p>
<p>—Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right,
sir.</p>
<p>Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead of
attending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying to
crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head down
like a bull at a gate. And another one: <i>Black Beast Burned in Omaha, Ga</i>.
A lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a Sambo strung
up in a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under him. Gob, they ought
to drown him in the sea after and electrocute and crucify him to make sure
of their job.</p>
<p>—But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at
bay?</p>
<p>—I'll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it
is. Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about flogging on
the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself <i>Disgusted
One</i>.</p>
<p>So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of
tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the parson
with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought
out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a gun.</p>
<p>—A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir
John Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning
on the breech.</p>
<p>And says John Wyse:</p>
<p>—'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.</p>
<p>Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane and
he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad till he
yells meila murder.</p>
<p>—That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses
the earth.</p>
<p>The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber on
the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen gamehogs
and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about of drudges
and whipped serfs.</p>
<p>—On which the sun never rises, says Joe.</p>
<p>—And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The
unfortunate yahoos believe it.</p>
<p>They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth,
and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast,
born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified,
flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again
from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further
orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid.</p>
<p>—But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. I mean
wouldn't it be the same here if you put force against force?</p>
<p>Didn't I tell you? As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his
last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living.</p>
<p>—We'll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our
greater Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in
the black 47. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were
laid low by the batteringram and the <i>Times</i> rubbed its hands and
told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland
as redskins in America. Even the Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the
Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of
crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, they
drove out the peasants in hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in the
coffinships. But those that came to the land of the free remember the land
of bondage. And they will come again and with a vengeance, no cravens, the
sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen ni Houlihan.</p>
<p>—Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was...</p>
<p>—We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since
the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at
Killala.</p>
<p>—Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us
against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the
broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild
geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain,
and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. But
what did we ever get for it?</p>
<p>—The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know
what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren't they
trying to make an <i>Entente cordiale</i> now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty
with perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were.</p>
<p>—<i>Conspuez les Fran�ais</i>, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer.</p>
<p>—And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we
had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the
elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead?</p>
<p>Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one
with the winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every night of
God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting her
up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the whiskers and
singing him old bits of songs about <i>Ehren on the Rhine</i> and come
where the boose is cheaper.</p>
<p>—Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now.</p>
<p>—Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more
pox than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin!</p>
<p>—And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and
bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty's
racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys
rode. The earl of Dublin, no less.</p>
<p>—They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says
little Alf.</p>
<p>And says J. J.:</p>
<p>—Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision.</p>
<p>—Will you try another, citizen? says Joe.</p>
<p>—Yes, sir, says he. I will.</p>
<p>—You? says Joe.</p>
<p>—Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less.</p>
<p>—Repeat that dose, says Joe.</p>
<p>Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with his
dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about.</p>
<p>—Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it.
Perpetuating national hatred among nations.</p>
<p>—But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.</p>
<p>—Yes, says Bloom.</p>
<p>—What is it? says John Wyse.</p>
<p>—A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the
same place.</p>
<p>—By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that's so I'm a nation for I'm
living in the same place for the past five years.</p>
<p>So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck
out of it:</p>
<p>—Or also living in different places.</p>
<p>—That covers my case, says Joe.</p>
<p>—What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.</p>
<p>The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob,
he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner.</p>
<p>—After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief
to swab himself dry.</p>
<p>—Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and
repeat after me the following words.</p>
<p>The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth
attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors
of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth
prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the
cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of
the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters his
evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American puma (a far nobler
king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), a Kerry
calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the
emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and
grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully
beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave
free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the
Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of
Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, Ireland's Eye,
the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur
Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's banks, the vale of
Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, Cape
Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown
Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids,
Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury's Hotel, S.
Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley's
hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of
Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Cave—all
these moving scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful
still by the waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich
incrustations of time.</p>
<p>—Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which?</p>
<p>—That's mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman.</p>
<p>—And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and
persecuted. Also now. This very moment. This very instant.</p>
<p>Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.</p>
<p>—Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what
belongs to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist,
sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle.</p>
<p>—Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom.</p>
<p>—Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.</p>
<p>That's an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old
lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he'd adorn a
sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. And
then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as
limp as a wet rag.</p>
<p>—But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's
not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that
it's the very opposite of that that is really life.</p>
<p>—What? says Alf.</p>
<p>—Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now,
says he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is
there. If he comes just say I'll be back in a second. Just a moment.</p>
<p>Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.</p>
<p>—A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.</p>
<p>—Well, says John Wyse. Isn't that what we're told. Love your
neighbour.</p>
<p>—That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto.
Love, moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.</p>
<p>Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves
Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B.
loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the
elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear
trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the
brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her
Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a
certain person. And this person loves that other person because everybody
loves somebody but God loves everybody.</p>
<p>—Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power,
citizen.</p>
<p>—Hurrah, there, says Joe.</p>
<p>—The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.</p>
<p>And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.</p>
<p>—We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket.
What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and
children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text <i>God is love</i>
pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit in
the <i>United Irishman</i> today about that Zulu chief that's visiting
England?</p>
<p>—What's that? says Joe.</p>
<p>So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts
reading out:</p>
<p>—A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was
presented yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in
Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the
heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in
his dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of
which the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely
translated by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod
Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the
cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire,
stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated
bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of England's
greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great
squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the
Royal Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to
the toast <i>Black and White</i> from the skull of his immediate
predecessor in the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after
which he visited the chief factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in
the visitors' book, subsequently executing a charming old Abeakutic
wardance, in the course of which he swallowed several knives and forks,
amid hilarious applause from the girl hands.</p>
<p>—Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that
bible to the same use as I would.</p>
<p>—Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful
land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.</p>
<p>—Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.</p>
<p>—No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only
initialled: P.</p>
<p>—And a very good initial too, says Joe.</p>
<p>—That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.</p>
<p>—Well, says J. J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the
Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man
what's this his name is?</p>
<p>—Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman.</p>
<p>—Yes, that's the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and
flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can
out of them.</p>
<p>—I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.</p>
<p>—Who? says I.</p>
<p>—Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on <i>Throwaway</i>
and he's gone to gather in the shekels.</p>
<p>—Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a
horse in anger in his life?</p>
<p>—That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to
back that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the
tip. Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the
only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse.</p>
<p>—He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.</p>
<p>—There you are, says Terry.</p>
<p>Goodbye Ireland I'm going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the
yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was letting
off my <i>(Throwaway</i> twenty to) letting off my load gob says I to
myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in
Slattery's off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings is
five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was telling
me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have done about
a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube <i>she's better</i>
or <i>she's</i> (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if he
won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland my
nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there's the
last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos.</p>
<p>So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it
was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all
kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the
government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling
Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody
kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody
chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr
Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before him perpetrating
frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that poisoned himself
with the prussic acid after he swamping the country with his baubles and
his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. Any amount of money
advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No security. Gob, he's like
Lanty MacHale's goat that'd go a piece of the road with every one.</p>
<p>—Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll
tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham.</p>
<p>Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power with
him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the collector
general's, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the registration and he
drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the king's
expense.</p>
<p>Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their
palfreys.</p>
<p>—Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the
party. Saucy knave! To us!</p>
<p>So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.</p>
<p>Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.</p>
<p>—Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.</p>
<p>—Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our
steeds. And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it.</p>
<p>—Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare
larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.</p>
<p>—How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant
countenance, So servest thou the king's messengers, master Taptun?</p>
<p>An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage.</p>
<p>—Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king's
messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The
king's friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house
I warrant me.</p>
<p>—Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty
trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?</p>
<p>Mine host bowed again as he made answer:</p>
<p>—What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops
of venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's
head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a
flagon of old Rhenish?</p>
<p>—Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!</p>
<p>—Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare
larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue.</p>
<p>So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.</p>
<p>—Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.</p>
<p>—Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen
about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?</p>
<p>—That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege.</p>
<p>—Who made those allegations? says Alf.</p>
<p>—I, says Joe. I'm the alligator.</p>
<p>—And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country
like the next fellow?</p>
<p>—Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is.</p>
<p>—Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the
hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.</p>
<p>—Who is Junius? says J. J.</p>
<p>—We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.</p>
<p>—He's a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it
was he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know
that in the castle.</p>
<p>—Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.</p>
<p>—Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the
father's name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the father
did.</p>
<p>—That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of
saints and sages!</p>
<p>—Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For
that matter so are we.</p>
<p>—Yes, says J. J., and every male that's born they think it may be
their Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe,
till he knows if he's a father or a mother.</p>
<p>—Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.</p>
<p>—O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of
his that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying
a tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered.</p>
<p>—<i>En ventre sa m�re</i>, says J. J.</p>
<p>—Do you call that a man? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power.</p>
<p>—And who does he suspect? says the citizen.</p>
<p>Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed middlings
he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with
headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I'm telling you?
It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like of that and
throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it would. Then
sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of stuff like a
man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your eye.</p>
<p>—Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't
wait.</p>
<p>—A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is.
Virag from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.</p>
<p>—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.</p>
<p>—Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.</p>
<p>—You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.</p>
<p>—Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert
us, says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our
shores.</p>
<p>—Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my
prayer.</p>
<p>—Amen, says the citizen.</p>
<p>—And I'm sure He will, says Joe.</p>
<p>And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with acolytes,
thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons, the
blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and
monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and
Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and
the friars of Augustine, Brigittines, Premonstratensians, Servi,
Trinitarians, and the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel
mount the children of Elijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of
Avila, calced and other: and friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis,
capuchins, cordeliers, minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara:
and the sons of Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent:
and the monks of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the
confraternity of the christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund
Ignatius Rice. And after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and
confessors: S. Cyr and S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S.
Phocas of Sinope and S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S.
Simon Stylites and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S.
Ferreol and S. Leugarde and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and
S. Vincent de Paul and S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S.
Alfred and S. Joseph and S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S.
Bernard and S. Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S.
Anonymous and S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S.
Paronymous and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole and S. James of
Dingle and Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine
and S. Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan
and S. Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan
and S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of
Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of holy
youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans
and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S.
Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and
S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis
Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of
Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and
S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa
of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with
eleven thousand virgins. And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae,
bearing palms and harps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were
woven the blessed symbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves,
cruses, fetters, axes, trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells,
wallets, shears, keys, dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps,
bellows, beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline,
bells, crutches, forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks,
millstones, eyes on a dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they
wended their way by Nelson's Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel
street, Little Britain street chanting the introit in <i>Epiphania Domini</i>
which beginneth <i>Surge, illuminare</i> and thereafter most sweetly the
gradual <i>Omnes</i> which saith <i>de Saba venient</i> they did divers
wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying
fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering various articles which
had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and
prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the reverend
Father O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the good fathers
had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co,
limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine and
brandy shippers, licensed fo the sale of beer, wine and spirits for
consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed
the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and
the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches
and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with
blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had blessed
the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of His light
to inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the beverages
and the company of all the blessed answered his prayers.</p>
<p>—<i>Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.</i></p>
<p>—<i>Qui fecit coelum et terram.</i></p>
<p>—<i>Dominus vobiscum.</i></p>
<p>—<i>Et cum spiritu tuo.</i></p>
<p>And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed
and they all with him prayed:</p>
<p>—<i>Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam
effunde super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem
et voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem
sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animae tutelam Te auctore
percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum.</i></p>
<p>—And so say all of us, says Jack.</p>
<p>—Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.</p>
<p>—Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.</p>
<p>I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when
be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry.</p>
<p>—I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I
hope I'm not...</p>
<p>—No, says Martin, we're ready.</p>
<p>Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. Mean
bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's a jew
for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to five.</p>
<p>—Don't tell anyone, says the citizen,</p>
<p>—Beg your pardon, says he.</p>
<p>—Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along
now.</p>
<p>—Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him.
It's a secret.</p>
<p>And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.</p>
<p>—Bye bye all, says Martin.</p>
<p>And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or
whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all
at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car.</p>
<p>—-Off with you, says</p>
<p>Martin to the jarvey.</p>
<p>The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the
helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with
all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh to
starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark,
they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he
fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each
one is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and
giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend
for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did they come and set them, those
willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And they laughed, sporting in a
circle of their foam: and the bark clave the waves.</p>
<p>But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the citizen
getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the dropsy, and
he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish,
spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf round him like a
leprechaun trying to peacify him.</p>
<p>—Let me alone, says he.</p>
<p>And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls out
of him:</p>
<p>—Three cheers for Israel!</p>
<p>Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake
and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's always
some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody
nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would.</p>
<p>And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and Martin
telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and Joe
at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers
calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the
car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts
singing <i>If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew</i> and a slut
shouts out of her:</p>
<p>—Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!</p>
<p>And says he:</p>
<p>—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And
the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.</p>
<p>—He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead.</p>
<p>—Whose God? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was
a jew like me.</p>
<p>Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.</p>
<p>—By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name.</p>
<p>By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.</p>
<p>—Stop! Stop! says Joe.</p>
<p>A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from the
metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid farewell
to Nagyasagos uram Lipoti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's, printers
to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant clime of
Szazharminczbrojugulyas-Dugulas (Meadow of Murmuring Waters). The ceremony
which went off with great <i>�clat</i> was characterised by the most
affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the
work of Irish artists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist
on behalf of a large section of the community and was accompanied by the
gift of a silver casket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient
Celtic ornament, a work which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs
Jacob <i>agus</i> Jacob. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty
ovation, many of those who were present being visibly moved when the
select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of <i>Come
back to Erin</i>, followed immediately by <i>Rakoczsy's March</i>.
Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along the coastline of the four seas
on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray
Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin
peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of M
Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers
that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster
of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic
pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from the
representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers while,
as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, the
flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute as were
also those of the electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the
Poolbeg Light. <i>Visszontl�t�sra, kedves bar�ton! Visszontl�t�sra!</i>
Gone but not forgotten.</p>
<p>Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow
and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting
like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's royal theatre:</p>
<p>—Where is he till I murder him?</p>
<p>And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.</p>
<p>—Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel.</p>
<p>But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other
way and off with him.</p>
<p>—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!</p>
<p>Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun
was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into
the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after
the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and
the old tinbox clattering along the street.</p>
<p>The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The
observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth
grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar
seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year
of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that
part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of
Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one
square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity of the
palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which
at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in progress,
is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the
occupants have been buried alive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it
transpires that the seismic waves were accompanied by a violent
atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character. An article of headgear
since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the crown and
peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle with the
engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the erudite and
worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder
of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the
island respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant's
causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in
the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other
eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of enormous
proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a
trajectory directed southwest by west. Messages of condolence and sympathy
are being hourly received from all parts of the different continents and
the sovereign pontiff has been graciously pleased to decree that a special
<i>missa pro defunctis</i> shall be celebrated simultaneously by the
ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all the episcopal
dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in suffrage of
the souls of those faithful departed who have been so unexpectedly called
away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of <i>d�bris,</i> human
remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great
Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North
Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light
infantry under the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the
right honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K.
P., K. T., P. C., K. C. B., M. P, J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F.
H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F.
R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I.</p>
<p>You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that
lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he
would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and
battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by
furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he
let a volley of oaths after him.</p>
<p>—Did I kill him, says he, or what?</p>
<p>And he shouting to the bloody dog:</p>
<p>—After him, Garry! After him, boy!</p>
<p>And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old
sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his
lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb.
Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise you.</p>
<p>When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the
chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the
chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of
the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look
upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: <i>Elijah!
Elijah!</i> And He answered with a main cry: <i>Abba! Adonai!</i> And they
beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the
glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in
Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.</p>
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