remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of
possibility. Naturally then, it would prey on his mind as a born leader of
men, which undoubtedly he was, and a commanding figure, a sixfooter or at
any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet, whereas Messrs.
So-and-So who, though they weren’t even a patch on the former man, ruled
the roost after their redeeming features were very few and far between. It
certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay. And then seventytwo of
his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual mudslinging. And the identical
same with murderers. You had to come back — that haunting sense kind of
drew you — to show the understudy in the title rôle how to. He saw him once
on the auspicious occasion when they broke up the type in the Insuppressible
or was it United Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact,
handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said Thank you,
excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid expression notwithstanding
the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip, — what’s bred
in the bone. Still, as regards return, you were a lucky dog if they didn’t set the
terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of shillyshally usually
followed. Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And then, number one, you
came up against the man in possession and had to produce your credentials,
like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, Bella was
the boat’s name to the best of his recollection he, the heir, went down in, as
the evidence went to show, and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink,
Lord Bellew, was it? As he might very easily have picked up the details from
some pal on board ship and then, when got up to tally with the description
given, introduce himself with, Excuse me, my name is So-and-So or some such
commonplace remark. A more prudent course, Mr Bloom said to the not over
effusive, in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion beside him,
would have been to sound the lie of the land first.
— That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor commented. She put the first nail in his coffin.
— Fine lump of a woman, all the same, the soi-disant townclerk, Henry Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. I seen her picture in a barber’s. Her husband was a captain or an officer.
— Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added. He was, and a cottonball one.
This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom, he, without the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and reflected
