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       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, drinking 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, ye’ll come home
by weeping cross one of these 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 explained he meant