ULYSSES

– 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 Tirconnell 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 thankyou 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. Domine! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westend club. But the Greek!

KYRIE ELEISON!

A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long lips.

– The Greek! he said again. Kyrios! Shining word! The vowels the Semite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! The closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause.

He strode away from them towards the window.

– They went forth to battle, Mr O’Madden Burke said greyly, but they always fell.

– Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in the latter half of the matinйe. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!

He whispered then near Stephen’s ear:

LENEHAN’S LIMERICK

– There’s a ponderous pundit MacHugh

Who wears goggles of ebony hue.

As he mostly sees double

To wear them why trouble?

I can’t see the Joe Miller. Can you?

In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.

Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.

– That’ll be all right, he said. I’ll read the rest after. That’ll be all right.

Lenehan extended his hands in protest.

– But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline?

– Opera? Mr O’Madden Burke’s sphinx face reriddled.

Lenehan announced gladly:

– The Rose of Castile. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!

He poked Mr O’Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O’Madden Burke fell back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.

– Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.

Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling tissues.

The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across Stephen’s and Mr O’Madden Burke’s loose ties.

– Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.

– Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O’Molloy said in quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff.

– We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.

OMNIUM GATHERUM

– All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics …

– The turf, Lenehan put in.

– Literature, the press.

– If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of advertisement.

– And Madam Bloom, Mr O’Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin’s prime favourite.

Lenehan gave a loud cough.

– Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a cold in the park. The gate was open.

'YOU CAN DO IT!'

The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen’s shoulder.

– I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. In the lexicon of youth …..

See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer.

– Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M‘Carthy.

– We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare.

– He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O’Molloy said.

THE GREAT GALLAHER

– You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in emphasis. Wait a minute. We’ll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher used to say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the Clarence. Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You know how he made his mark? I’ll tell you. That was the smartest piece of journalism ever known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of the invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I suppose. I’ll show you.

He pushed past them to the files.

– Look at here, he said turning. The New York World cabled for a special. Remember that time?

Professor MacHugh nodded.

– New York World, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car. Whole route, see?

– Skin-the-Goat, Mr O’Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that cabman’s shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. You know Holohan?

– Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said.

– And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for the corporation. A night watchman.

Stephen turned in surprise.

– Gumley? he said. You don’t say so? A friend of my father’s, is it?