— Begone! he said. The world is before you.
— Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.
J.J. O’Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan’s hand and read them, blowing them apart gently, without comment.
— He’ll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through his blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps after him.
— Show! Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.
A STREET CORTÈGE
Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr Bloom’s wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail of white bowknots.
— Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said, and you’ll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk. Small nines. Steal upon larks.
He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding feet past the fireplace to J.J. O’Molloy who placed the tissues in his receiving hands.
— What’s that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other two gone?
— Who? the professor said, turning. They’re gone round to the Oval for a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.
— Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where’s my hat?
He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the air and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.
— He’s pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice.
— Seems to be, J.J. O’Molloy said, taking out a cigarette case in murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most matches?
THE CALUMET OF PEACE
He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.J. O’Molloy opened his case again and offered it.
— Thanky vous, Lenehan said, helping himself.
The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh :
’Twas rank and fame that tempted thee,
’Twas empire charmed thy heart.
The professor grinned, locking his long lips.
— Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.
He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him with quick grace, said :
— Silence for my brandnew riddle!
— Imperium romanum, J.J. O’Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.
Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.
— That’s it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire. We haven’t got the chance of a snowball in hell.
THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
— Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We mustn’t be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome, imperial, imperious, imperative.
He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing :
— What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow : but vile. Cloacae : sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said : It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said : Is it meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset.
— Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said, Our old ancient ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness’s, were partial to the running stream.
— They were nature’s gentlemen, J.J. O’Molloy murmured. But we have also Roman law.
— And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.
— Do you know that story about chief Baron Palles? J.J. O’Molloy asked. It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly…
— First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?
Mr O’Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.
— Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan cried.
— I escort a suppliant, M. O’Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by Experience visits Notoriety.
— How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your governor is just gone.
???
Lenehan said to all :
— Silence! What opera resembles a railway line? Reflect, ponder, excogitate, reply.
Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and signature.
— Who? the editor asked.
Bit torn off.
— Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said :
— That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken?
On swift sail flaming
From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
— Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned…?
Bullockbefriending bard.
SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT
— Good day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to…
— O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and knew his wife too. The bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter’s face in the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O’Rourke, prince of Breffni.
— Is he a widower? Stephen asked.
— Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the typescript. Emperor’s horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the ramparts of Vienna. Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell, graf von Tirconnel in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes, every time. Don’t you forget that!
— The moot point is did he forget it, J.J. O’Molloy said quietly, turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on him.
— And if not? he said.
— I’ll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one day…
LOST CAUSES NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED
— We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim : time is money. Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord