SPACES
[ 12 ]


I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the
corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along
and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have
the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony
Batter only Joe Hynes.

-Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody
chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?

-Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to?

-Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give that
fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and
ladders.

-What are you doing round those parts? says Joe.

-Devil a much, says I. There's a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the
garrison church at the corner of Chicken lane-old Troy was just giving
me a wrinkle about him-lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to
pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a
hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury
street.

-Circumcised? says Joe.

-Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm
hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a
penny out of him.

-That the lay you're on now? says Joe.

-Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful
debts. But that's the most notorious bloody robber you'd meet in a
day's walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of
rain. _Tell him,_ says he, _I dare him,_ says he, _and I doubledare him
to send you round here again or if he does,_ says he, _I'll have him
summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a
licence._ And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Jesus,
I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. _He drink me
my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he no pay me my moneys?_

For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin's
parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter
called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty,
esquire, of 29 Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward,
gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds
avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per
pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed
crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor
to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling
for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said
vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three
shillings and no pence sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall
not be pawned or pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said
purchaser but shall be and remain and be held to be the sole and
exclusive property of the said vendor to be disposed of at his good
will and pleasure until the said amount shall have been duly paid by
the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein set forth as
this day hereby agreed between the said vendor, his heirs, successors,
trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his heirs,
successors, trustees and assigns of the other part.

-Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe.

-Not taking anything between drinks, says I.

-What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe.

-Who? says I. Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man.

-Drinking his own stuff? says Joe.

-Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain.

-Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the citizen.

-Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe?

-Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms.

-What was that, Joe? says I.

-Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want to
give the citizen the hard word about it.

So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the
courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he
has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over
that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a
licence, says he.

In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There
rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as
in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant
land it is in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport
the gurnard, the plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock,
the grilse, the dab, the brill, the flounder, the pollock, the mixed
coarse fish generally and other denizens of the aqueous kingdom too
numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of the west and of the
east the lofty trees wave in different directions their firstclass
foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted
planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal
world with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely
maidens sit in close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing
the most lovely songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects
as for example golden ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts
of eels, codlings, creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful
insects. And heroes voyage from afar to woo them, from Eblana to
Slievemargy, the peerless princes of unfettered Munster and of Connacht
the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and of Cruachan's land and of
Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of Boyle, princes, the
sons of kings.

And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen
by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for
that purpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits
of that land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain
descended from chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring
foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach,
pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs,
drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale,
York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets
of mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and
red green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples
and chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy and
pelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their
canes.

I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, you
notorious bloody hill and dale robber!

And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed
ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers
and roaring mares and polled calves and longwools and storesheep and
Cuffe's prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the
various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus
heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime
premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling,
cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting,
champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from
pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy
vales of Thomond, from the M'Gillicuddy's reeks the inaccessible and
lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the
place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance
of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins
and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great
hundreds, various in size, the agate with this dun.

So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there, sure enough, was the
citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that
bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would
drop in the way of drink.

-There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his
load of papers, working for the cause.

The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps.
Be a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that
bloody dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off
a constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper
about a licence.

-Stand and deliver, says he.

-That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here.

-Pass, friends, says he.

Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he:

-What's your opinion of the times?

Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to
the occasion.

-I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his
fork.

So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says:

-Foreign wars is the cause of it.

And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket:

-It's the Russians wish to tyrannise.

-Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I've a thirst on me
I wouldn't sell for half a crown.

-Give it a name, citizen, says Joe.

-Wine of the country, says he.

-What's yours? says Joe.

-Ditto MacAnaspey, says I.

-Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, citizen? says
he.

-Never better, _a chara_, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win? Eh?

And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck
and, by Jesus, he near throttled him.

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was
that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired
freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded
deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed
hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his
rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of
his body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair
in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (_Ulex Europeus_).
The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue
projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous
obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes in
which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the
dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm
breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his
mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations
of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the
summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to
vibrate and tremble.

He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to
the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a
girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of
deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were
encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet
being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of
the same beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled
at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with
rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and
heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine
hostages, Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane
O'Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh
O'Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael
Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley,
Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain
Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S.
Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone,
the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of
Castile, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte
Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin,
Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish,
Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell,
Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the
Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian
Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan
and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold
Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen
Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben
Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss
Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva,
The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky
Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Don
Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested
by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe
whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a
supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which
his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a
mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone.

So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the
sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid. O, as true as
I'm telling you. A goodlooking sovereign.

-And there's more where that came from, says he.

-Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I.

-Sweat of my brow, says Joe. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the
wheeze.

-I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and
Greek street with his cod's eye counting up all the guts of the fish.

Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, the
son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the
prudent soul.

-For the old woman of Prince's street, says the citizen, the subsidised
organ. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look at
this blasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. _The Irish
Independent,_ if you please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman's
friend. Listen to the births and deaths in the _Irish all for Ireland
Independent,_ and I'll thank you and the marriages.

And he starts reading them out:

-Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's
on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How's that, eh? Wright
and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the
late George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and
Ridsdale at Saint Jude's, Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest,
dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London:
Carr, Stoke Newington, of gastritis and heart disease: Cockburn, at the
Moat house, Chepstow...

-I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience.

-Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller,
Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street,
Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How's that for a national press, eh, my
brown son! How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber?

-Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they had
the start of us. Drink that, citizen.

-I will, says he, honourable person.

-Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form.

Ah! Ow! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint.
Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click.

And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came
swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him
there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred
scrolls of law and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage,
fairest of her race.

Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney's
snug, squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in
the corner that I hadn't seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob
Doran. I didn't know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the
door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen
in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter
and the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman, trotting
like a poodle. I thought Alf would split.

-Look at him, says he. Breen. He's traipsing all round Dublin with a
postcard someone sent him with U. p: up on it to take a li...

And he doubled up.

-Take a what? says I.

-Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds.

-O hell! says I.

The bloody mongrel began to growl that'd put the fear of God in you
seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs.

_-Bi i dho husht,_ says he.

-Who? says Joe.

-Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton's and then he went round
to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round
to the subsheriff's for a lark. O God, I've a pain laughing. U. p: up.
The long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody
old lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man.

-When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe.

-Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan?

-Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a
pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen
long John's eye. U. p ....

And he started laughing.

-Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan?

-Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf.

Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full
of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and
Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of
deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and
mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour
juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day
from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.

Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born,
that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that
thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals.

But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be
outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a
testoon of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork
was seen the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of
Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of
God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the
British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress
of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the
wellbeloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to
the going down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop.

-What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up and
down outside?

-What's that? says Joe.

-Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging,
I'll show you something you never saw. Hangmen's letters. Look at here.

So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his
pocket.

-Are you codding? says I.

-Honest injun, says Alf. Read them.

So Joe took up the letters.

-Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran.

So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust. Bob's a queer chap when
the porter's up in him so says I just to make talk:

-How's Willy Murray those times, Alf?

-I don't know, says Alf. I saw him just now in Capel street with Paddy
Dignam. Only I was running after that...

-You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who?

-With Dignam, says Alf.

-Is it Paddy? says Joe.

-Yes, says Alf. Why?

-Don't you know he's dead? says Joe.

-Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf.

-Ay, says Joe.

-Sure I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as
a pikestaff.

-Who's dead? says Bob Doran.

-You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm.

-What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray
with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim's... What? Dignam
dead?

-What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who's talking about...?

-Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are.

-Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning
anyhow.

-Paddy? says Alf.

-Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him.

-Good Christ! says Alf.

Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted.

In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by
tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing
luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of
the etheric double being particularly lifelike owing to the discharge
of jivic rays from the crown of the head and face. Communication was
effected through the pituitary body and also by means of the
orangefiery and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar
plexus. Questioned by his earthname as to his whereabouts in the
heavenworld he stated that he was now on the path of prālāyā or return
but was still submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirsty
entities on the lower astral levels. In reply to a question as to his
first sensations in the great divide beyond he stated that previously
he had seen as in a glass darkly but that those who had passed over had
summit possibilities of atmic development opened up to them.
Interrogated as to whether life there resembled our experience in the
flesh he stated that he had heard from more favoured beings now in the
spirit that their abodes were equipped with every modern home comfort
such as tālāfānā, ālāvātār, hātākāldā, wātāklāsāt and that the highest
adepts were steeped in waves of volupcy of the very purest nature.
Having requested a quart of buttermilk this was brought and evidently
afforded relief. Asked if he had any message for the living he exhorted
all who were still at the wrong side of Māyā to acknowledge the true
path for it was reported in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were
out for mischief on the eastern angle where the ram has power. It was
then queried whether there were any special desires on the part of the
defunct and the reply was: _We greet you, friends of earth, who are
still in the body. Mind C. K. doesn't pile it on._ It was ascertained
that the reference was to Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H.
J. O'Neill's popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of the
defunct, who had been responsible for the carrying out of the interment
arrangements. Before departing he requested that it should be told to
his dear son Patsy that the other boot which he had been looking for
was at present under the commode in the return room and that the pair
should be sent to Cullen's to be soled only as the heels were still
good. He stated that this had greatly perturbed his peace of mind in
the other region and earnestly requested that his desire should be made
known.

Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was
intimated that this had given satisfaction.

He is gone from mortal haunts: O'Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was
his foot on the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with
your wind: and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind.

-There he is again, says the citizen, staring out.

-Who? says I.

-Bloom, says he. He's on point duty up and down there for the last ten
minutes.

And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again.

Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was.

-Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him.

And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest
blackguard in Dublin when he's under the influence:

-Who said Christ is good?

-I beg your parsnips, says Alf.

-Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little Willy
Dignam?

-Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He's over all his troubles.

But Bob Doran shouts out of him.

-He's a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam.

Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn't
want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob
Doran starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you're there.

-The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character.

The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat.
Fitter for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married,
Mooney, the bumbailiff's daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke
street, that used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told
me that was stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on
her, exposing her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour.

-The noblest, the truest, says he. And he's gone, poor little Willy,
poor little Paddy Dignam.

And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that
beam of heaven.

Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round
the door.

-Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the citizen.

So Bloom slopes in with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was
Martin Cunningham there.

-O, Christ M'Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to
this, will you?

And he starts reading out one.

_7 Hunter Street,
Liverpool._


_To the High Sheriff of Dublin,
            Dublin._


_Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful
case i hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of Febuary 1900 and i
hanged..._

-Show us, Joe, says I.

-_... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit in
Pentonville prison and i was assistant when..._

-Jesus, says I.

-_... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith..._

The citizen made a grab at the letter.

-Hold hard, says Joe, _i have a special nack of putting the noose once
in he can't get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my
terms is five ginnees._

_H. Rumbold,
            Master Barber._


-And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen.

-And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them
to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you
have?

So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and
he couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said
well he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake.

-Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe.

And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with
a black border round it.

-They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang
their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses.

And he was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his
heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they
chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull.

In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their
deadly coil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever
wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so
saith the Lord.

So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom
comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the
business and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those
jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about
I don't know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on.

-There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf.

-What's that? says Joe.

-The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf.

-That so? says Joe.

-God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in
Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when
they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like
a poker.

-Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said.

-That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural
phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the...

And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science
and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon.

The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered
medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the
cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would,
according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be
calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent
ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus,
thereby causing the elastic pores of the _corpora cavernosa_ to rapidly
dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood
to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ
resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a
morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection _in articulo
mortis per diminutionem capitis._

So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and
he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard
and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe
with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported
for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this,
that and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a
new dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all
round the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob
Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could
get. So of course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him:

-Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw
here! Give us the paw!

Arrah, bloody end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from
tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking
all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and
intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few
bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to
bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging
out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry
bloody mongrel.

And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the
brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet
and die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and
she's far from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown
cigar putting on swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he
married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley.
Time they were stopping up in the _City Arms_ pisser Burke told me
there was an old one there with a cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and
Bloom trying to get the soft side of her doing the mollycoddle playing
bézique to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and not eating
meat of a Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw and
taking the lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds of
Dublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought
him home as drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him
the evils of alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn't near
roast him, it's a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd
that kept the hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them
off chewing the fat. And Bloom with his _but don't you see?_ and _but
on the other hand_. And sure, more be token, the lout I'm told was in
Power's after, the blender's, round in Cope street going home footless
in a cab five times in the week after drinking his way through all the
samples in the bloody establishment. Phenomenon!

-The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and
glaring at Bloom.

-Ay, ay, says Joe.

-You don't grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is...

-_Sinn Fein!_ says the citizen. _Sinn Fein amhain!_ The friends we love
are by our side and the foes we hate before us.

The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far
and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the
gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums
punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening
claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the
ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its
supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain
poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared
heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the lowest
computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin
Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person
maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and
reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on
their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from
the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains
and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our
country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable
amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and
M-ll-g-n who sang _The Night before Larry was stretched_ in their usual
mirth-provoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade
with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody
who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will
grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and
Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the
scene were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day's
entertainment and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the
Poor for their excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and
motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal
houseparty which included many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their
Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grandstand while
the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald
Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation,
present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone
(the semiparalysed _doyen_ of the party who had to be assisted to his
seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul
Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the
Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha
Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos
Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Señor Hidalgo
Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la
Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen,
Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr
Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident
Hans Chuechli-Steuerli,
Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentge
neralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the
delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest
possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which
they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which
all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth
or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland's
patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars,
boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas,
catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to
and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable
MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly
restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth
of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending
parties. The readywitted ninefooter's suggestion at once appealed to
all and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily
congratulated by all the F. O. T. E. I., several of whom were bleeding
profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from
underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal
adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his
thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the
pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their
senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies' and
gentlemen's gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their
rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme.

Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless
morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the _Gladiolus
Cruentus_. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough
which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate-short, painstaking
yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the
worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the
huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in
their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates
cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, _hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio,
chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah_, amid which the ringing
_evviva_ of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling
those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani
beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It
was exactly seventeen o'clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly
given by megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the
commendatore's patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession
of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his
medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who
administered the last comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when
about to pay the death penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a
pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to
the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication. Hard by the block
stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in
a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which
his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested
the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or
decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been
provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a
handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering
knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially
supplied by the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and
Sons, Sheffield), a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of the
duodenum, colon, blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully
extracted and two commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most
precious blood of the most precious victim. The housesteward of the
amalgamated cats' and dogs' home was in attendance to convey these
vessels when replenished to that beneficent institution. Quite an
excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, fried steak and
onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls and
invigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for
the consumption of the central figure of the tragedy who was in capital
spirits when prepared for death and evinced the keenest interest in the
proceedings from beginning to end but he, with an abnegation rare in
these our times, rose nobly to the occasion and expressed the dying
wish (immediately acceded to) that the meal should be divided in
aliquot parts among the members of the sick and indigent roomkeepers'
association as a token of his regard and esteem. The _nec_ and _non
plus ultra_ of emotion were reached when the blushing bride elect burst
her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders and flung herself
upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be launched into
eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in a loving
embrace murmuring fondly _Sheila, my own_. Encouraged by this use of
her christian name she kissed passionately all the various suitable
areas of his person which the decencies of prison garb permitted her
ardour to reach. She swore to him as they mingled the salt streams of
their tears that she would ever cherish his memory, that she would
never forget her hero boy who went to his death with a song on his lips
as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park. She
brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhood
together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the
innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present,
they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including the venerable
pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster audience simply
rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped
their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst from
their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the
inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being
the aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and
genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of
their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye
in that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a
handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair
sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and
genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady,
requesting her to name the day, and was accepted on the spot. Every
lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the
occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and
generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the
gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most
timehonoured names in Albion's history) placed on the finger of his
blushing _fiancée_ an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in
the form of a fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay,
even the stern provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell
ffrenchmullan Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had
blown a considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without
flinching, could not now restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed
gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard, by those
privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediate _entourage,_ to
murmur to himself in a faltering undertone:

-God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it
makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause
I thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way.

So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the
corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can't speak
their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a
quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that he
cadged off of Joe and talking about the Gaelic league and the
antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is
about the size of it. Gob, he'd let you pour all manner of drink down
his throat till the Lord would call him before you'd ever see the froth
of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their
musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of
hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly
blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen
bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals and
oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh
entertainment, don't be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And
then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers
shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two
sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with the
females, hitting below the belt.

So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty
starts mousing around by Joe and me. I'd train him by kindness, so I
would, if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again
where it wouldn't blind him.

-Afraid he'll bite you? says the citizen, jeering.

-No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost.

So he calls the old dog over.

-What's on you, Garry? says he.

Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the
old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera.
Such growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone
that has nothing better to do ought to write a letter _pro bono
publico_ to the papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of
that. Growling and grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth
is in it and the hydrophobia dropping out of his jaws.

All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the
lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not
missing the really marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the
famous old Irish red setter wolfdog formerly known by the _sobriquet_
of Garryowen and recently rechristened by his large circle of friends
and acquaintances Owen Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of
years of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary
system, comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse.
Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from
us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and
compare the verse recited and has found it bears a _striking_
resemblance (the italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic
bards. We are not speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with
which the writer who conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym
of the Little Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but
rather (as a contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting
communication published by an evening contemporary) of the harsher and
more personal note which is found in the satirical effusions of the
famous Raftery and of Donal MacConsidine to say nothing of a more
modern lyrist at present very much in the public eye. We subjoin a
specimen which has been rendered into English by an eminent scholar
whose name for the moment we are not at liberty to disclose though we
believe that our readers will find the topical allusion rather more
than an indication. The metrical system of the canine original, which
recalls the intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh
englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will
agree that the spirit has been well caught. Perhaps it should be added
that the effect is greatly increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat
slowly and indistinctly in a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour.

     The curse of my curses
     Seven days every day
     And seven dry Thursdays
     On you, Barney Kiernan,
     Has no sup of water
     To cool my courage,
     And my guts red roaring
     After Lowry's lights.

So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could
hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have
another.

-I will, says he, _a chara_, to show there's no ill feeling.

Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one
pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog
and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for
man and beast. And says Joe:

-Could you make a hole in another pint?

-Could a swim duck? says I.

-Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won't have anything in
the way of liquid refreshment? says he.

-Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet
Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor
Dignam's. Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I
mean, didn't serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the
time and nominally under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the
policy.

-Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is
landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what?

-Well, that's a point, says Bloom, for the wife's admirers.

-Whose admirers? says Joe.

-The wife's advisers, I mean, says Bloom.

Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act
like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit
of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that
Dignam owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow
contested the mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled
with his mortgagor under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in
himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a
friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal
Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you're there. O, commend me to an
israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery.

So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he
was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and
to tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was
never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy that's dead to tell her.
Choking with bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom's hand doing the tragic
to tell her that. Shake hands, brother. You're a rogue and I'm another.

-Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however
slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is
founded, as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to
request of you this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits
of reserve let the sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my
boldness.

-No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which
actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me
consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow,
this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness
of the cup.

-Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart,
I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the
expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose
poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of
speech.

And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five
o'clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the
bobby, 14A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after
closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard,
drinking porter out of teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the
shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he
serving mass in Adam and Eve's when he was young with his eyes shut,
who wrote the new testament, and the old testament, and hugging and
smugging. And the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his
pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed
and the two shawls screeching laughing at one another. _How is your
testament? Have you got an old testament?_ Only Paddy was passing
there, I tell you what. Then see him of a Sunday with his little
concubine of a wife, and she wagging her tail up the aisle of the
chapel with her patent boots on her, no less, and her violets, nice as
pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney's sister. And the old
prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street couples. Gob, Jack
made him toe the line. Told him if he didn't patch up the pot, Jesus,
he'd kick the shite out of him.

So Terry brought the three pints.

-Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen.

-_Slan leat_, says he.

-Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen.

Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small
fortune to keep him in drinks.

-Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe.

-Friend of yours, says Alf.

-Nannan? says Joe. The mimber?

-I won't mention any names, says Alf.

-I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William
Field, M. P., the cattle traders.

-Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of
all countries and the idol of his own.

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.

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.

-Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London
to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons.

-Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see
him, as it happens.

-Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight.

-That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr
Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure?

-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? _The Sluagh na h-Eireann_.

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?

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.

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?

Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative.

Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman's famous
Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury
bench? (O! O!)

Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question.

Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don't hesitate to shoot.

(Ironical opposition cheers.)

The speaker: Order! Order!

(The house rises. Cheers.)

-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?

-_Na bacleis_, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a
time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.

-Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.

-Is that really a fact? says Alf.

-Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Did you not know that?

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: _Look at, Bloom.
Do you see that straw? That's a straw_. Declare to my aunt he'd talk
about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.

A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of _Brian
O'Ciarnain's_ in _Sraid na Bretaine Bheag_, under the auspices of
_Sluagh na h-Eireann_, 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) _A nation once again_ 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.

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.

-Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that
Keogh-Bennett match?

-No, says Joe.

-I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.

-Who? Blazes? says Joe.

And says Bloom:

-What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training
the eye.

-Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up
the odds and he swatting all the time.

-We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put
English gold in his pocket.

-True for you, says Joe.

And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the
blood, asking Alf:

-Now, don't you think, Bergan?

-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.

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.

-He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's
running a concert tour now up in the north.

-He is, says Joe. Isn't he?

-Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer
tour, you see. Just a holiday.

-Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe.

-My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success
too. He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent.

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.

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.

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.

-Hello, Ned.

-Hello, Alf.

-Hello, Jack.

-Hello, Joe.

-God save you, says the citizen.

-Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned?

-Half one, says Ned.

So J. J. ordered the drinks.

-Were you round at the court? says Joe.

-Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he.

-Hope so, says Ned.

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.

-Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p: up.

-Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective.

-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.

-Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I'd give anything to
hear him before a judge and jury.

-Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson.

-Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character.

-Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence
against you.

-Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not
_compos mentis_. U. p: up.

_-Compos_ 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.

-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.

-Ha ha, Alf, says Joe.

-Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife.

-Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half
and half.

-How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he...

-Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish
nor flesh.

-Nor good red herring, says Joe.

-That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what
that is.

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.

-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.

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.

-Well, good health, Jack, says Ned.

-Good health, Ned, says J. J.

--There he is again, says Joe.

-Where? says Alf.

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.

-How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe.

-Remanded, says J. J.

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.

-Who tried the case? says Joe.

-Recorder, says Ned.

-Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes.

-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.

-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.

And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry:

-A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children?
Ten, did you say?

-Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid.

-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.

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 _in re_ 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.

-Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland
filling the country with bugs.

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.

-Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have
repetition. That's the whole secret.

-Rely on me, says Joe.

-Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We
want no more strangers in our house.

-O, I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just that
Keyes, you see.

-Consider that done, says Joe.

-Very kind of you, says Bloom.

-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.

-Decree _nisi,_ says J. J.

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.

-A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of all
our misfortunes.

-And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the _Police Gazette_
with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.

-Give us a squint at her, says I.

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.

-O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!

-There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off
of that one, what?

So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on
him as long as a late breakfast.

-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?

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.

-It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal
Sassenachs and their _patois._

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.

-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.

-The European family, says J. J....

-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 _cabinet d'aisance._

And says John Wyse:

-Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.

And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo:

-_Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!_

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 _Lamh
Dearg Abu_, 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.

-What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had
lost a bob and found a tanner.

-Gold cup, says he.

-Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry.

_-Throwaway,_ says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest
nowhere.

-And Bass's mare? says Terry.

-Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid
on my tip _Sceptre_ for himself and a lady friend.

-I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on _Zinfandel_ that Mr Flynn
gave me. Lord Howard de Walden's.

-Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. _Throwaway,_
says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy
name is _Sceptre._

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.

-Not there, my child, says he.

-Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for the
other dog.

And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom
sticking in an odd word.

-Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they
can't see the beam in their own.

-_Raimeis_, 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?

-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...

-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.

-Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan.

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 _motif_ 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
_Woodman, spare that tree_ at the conclusion of the service. On leaving
the church of Saint Fiacre _in Horto_ 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.

-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.

-And will again, says Joe.

-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.

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.

-Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have?

-An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion.

-Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you
asleep?

-Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir.

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: _Black Beast Burned
in Omaha, Ga_. 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.

-But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at
bay?

-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
_Disgusted One_.

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.

-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.

And says John Wyse:

-'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

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.

-That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the
earth. 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.

-On which the sun never rises, says Joe.

-And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The
unfortunate yahoos believe it.

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.

-But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn't
it be the same here if you put force against force?

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.

-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 _Times_ 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.

-Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was...

-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.

-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?

-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 _Entente cordiale_ now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with
perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were.

-_Conspuez les Français_, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer.

-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?

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 _Ehren on the
Rhine_ and come where the boose is cheaper.

-Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now.

-Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more pox
than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin!

-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.

-They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little
Alf.

And says J. J.:

-Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision.

-Will you try another, citizen? says Joe.

-Yes, sir, says he. I will.

-You? says Joe.

-Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less.

-Repeat that dose, says Joe.

Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with
his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling
about.

-Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it.
Perpetuating national hatred among nations.

-But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.

-Yes, says Bloom.

-What is it? says John Wyse.

-A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same
place.

-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.

So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to
muck out of it:

-Or also living in different places.

-That covers my case, says Joe.

-What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.

-Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.

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.

-After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to
swab himself dry.

-Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and
repeat after me the following words.

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.

-Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which?

-That's mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman.

-And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted.
Also now. This very moment. This very instant.

Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.

-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.

-Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.

-I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom.

-Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.

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.

-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.

-What? says Alf.

-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.

Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.

-A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.

-Well, says John Wyse. Isn't that what we're told. Love your neighbour.

-That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,
moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.

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.

-Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power,
citizen.

-Hurrah, there, says Joe.

-The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.

And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.

-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 _God is love_
pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit
in the _United Irishman_ today about that Zulu chief that's visiting
England?

-What's that? says Joe.

So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts
reading out:

-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 _Black and White_ 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.

-Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that
bible to the same use as I would.

-Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land
the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.

-Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.

-No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only
initialled: P.

-And a very good initial too, says Joe.

-That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.

-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?

-Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman.

-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.

-I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.

-Who? says I.

-Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on
_Throwaway_ and he's gone to gather in the shekels.

-Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a
horse in anger in his life?

-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.

-He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.

-Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.

-There you are, says Terry.

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 _(Throwaway_ 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 _she's
better_ or _she's_ (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.

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.

-Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll
tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham.

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.

Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their
palfreys.

-Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party.
Saucy knave! To us!

So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.

Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.

-Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.

-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.

-Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare
larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.

-How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant
countenance, So servest thou the king's messengers, master Taptun?

An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage.

-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.

-Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty
trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?

Mine host bowed again as he made answer:

-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?

-Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!

-Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare
larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue.

So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.

-Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.

-Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen
about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?

-That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege.

-Who made those allegations? says Alf.

-I, says Joe. I'm the alligator.

-And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country like
the next fellow?

-Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is.

-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.

-Who is Junius? says J. J.

-We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.

-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.

-Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.

-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.

-That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints
and sages!

-Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that
matter so are we.

-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.

-Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.

-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.

-_En ventre sa mère_, says J. J.

-Do you call that a man? says the citizen.

-I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.

-Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power.

-And who does he suspect? says the citizen.

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.

-Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't wait.

-A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is. Virag
from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.

-Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.

-Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.

-You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.

-Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us,
says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our
shores.

-Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my
prayer.

-Amen, says the citizen.

-And I'm sure He will, says Joe.

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 _Epiphania Domini_ which
beginneth _Surge, illuminare_ and thereafter most sweetly the gradual
_Omnes_ which saith _de Saba venient_ 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 for 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.

-_Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._

-_Qui fecit cœlum et terram._

-_Dominus vobiscum._

-_Et cum spiritu tuo._

And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he
prayed and they all with him prayed:

-_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 animæ tutelam Te auctore
percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum._

-And so say all of us, says Jack.

-Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.

-Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.

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.

-I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope
I'm not...

-No, says Martin, we're ready.

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.

-Don't tell anyone, says the citizen.

-Beg your pardon, says he.

-Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.

-Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a
secret.

And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.

-Bye bye all, says Martin.

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.

-Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.

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.

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.

-Let me alone, says he.

And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls
out of him:

-Three cheers for Israel!

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.

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 _If the man in the moon was a jew,
jew, jew_ and a slut shouts out of her:

-Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!

And says he:

-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.

-He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead.

-Whose God? says the citizen.

-Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a
jew like me.

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

-By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

-Stop! Stop! says Joe.

A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from
the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid
farewell to Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander
Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for
the distant clime of Százharminczbrojúgulyás-Dugulás (Meadow of
Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _éclat_ 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 _agus_ 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 _Come Back to Erin_,
followed immediately by _Rakóczsy's March_. 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.
_Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra!_ Gone but not
forgotten.

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:

-Where is he till I murder him?

And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.

-Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel.

But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other
way and off with him.

-Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!

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.

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 _missa pro defunctis_ 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 _débris,_ 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.

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.

-Did I kill him, says he, or what?

And he shouting to the bloody dog:

-After him, Garry! After him, boy!

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.

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:
_Elijah! Elijah!_ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai!_ 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.
ENDOFFILE