―To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.
―I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned. Today, in fact, or, to be strictly accurate, on yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of conversation that he had moved.
―I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. Why?
―A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great pride, quite legitimately, out of you. You could go back, perhaps, he hazarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion, were patently trying, as if the whole bally station belonged to them, to give Stephen the slip in the confusion.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion, however, such as it was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his family hearth the last time he saw it, with his sister Dilly sitting by the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink it with the oatmeal water for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten at two a penny, with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper in accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or, if not, ember days or something like that.
―No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I were in your shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn’t notice as much as I did but it wouldn’t occasion me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some ulterior object.
He understood, however, from all he heard, that Dr Mulligan was a versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it? was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
―Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude, half curiosity, augmented by friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact, on the problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled, to judge by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop, or, the other way about, saw through the affair, and, for some reason or other best known to himself, allowed matters to more or less … Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.
Adjacent to the men’s public urinal he perceived an icecream car round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the parties.
―Putanna madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!
―Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più …
―Dice lui, però.
―Farabutto! Mortacci sui!
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely, if ever, been before; the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the invincible, though he wouldn’t vouch for the actual facts, which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner, only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus homo, already there engaged in eating and drinking, diversified by conversation, for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity.
―Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape of solid food, say a roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores, or whatever they were, after a cursory examinatiou, turned their eyes, apparently dissatisfied, away, though one redbearded bibulous individual, portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor, probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor.
Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having
