No More Learning

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 Cruahan'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 longwoods 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 pr l ya 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 talafana, alavatar,
hatakalda, wataklasat 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 Maya 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 bezique
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_.