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up. Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him
on to the Star. Now he’s got in with Blumenfeld. That’s
press. That’s talent. Pyatt! He was all their daddies!
—The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed,
and the brother-in-law of Chris Callinan.
—Hello? ... Are you there? ... Yes, he’s here still.
Come across yourself.
—Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the
editor cried. He flung the pages down.
—Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O’Madden Burke.
—Very smart, Mr O’Madden Burke said.
Professor MacHugh came from the inner office.
—Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see
that some hawkers were up before the recorder
—O yes, J. J. O’Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was
walking home through the park to see all the trees that
were blown down by that cyclone last year and thought
she’d buy a view of Dublin. And it turned out to be a
commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or
Skin-the-Goat. Right outside the viceregal lodge,
imagine!
—They’re only in the hook and eye department, Myles
Crawford said. Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a
man now at the bar like those fellows, like Whiteside, like
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Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O’Hagan. Eh? Ah, bloody
nonsense. Psha! Only in the halfpenny place.
His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous
curls of disdain.
Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do
you know? Why did you write it then?
RHYMES AND REASONS
Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the
south a mouth? Must be some. South, pout, out, shout,
drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed the same, looking the
same, two by two.
… … … … … … … … la tua pace
… … … … … … che parlar ti piace
…. mentreché il vento, come fa, si tace.
He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in
green, in rose, in russet, entwining, per l’aer perso, in
mauve, in purple, quella pacifica oriafiamma, gold of
oriflamme, di rimirar fe piu ardenti. But I old men, penitent,
leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouth south:
tomb womb.
—Speak up for yourself, Mr O’Madden Burke said.
SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY
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...
J. J. O’Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage.
—My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside,
you put a false construction on my words. I hold no brief,
as at present advised, for the third profession qua
profession but your Cork legs are running away with you.
Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and
Demosthenes and Edmund Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all
know and his Chapelizod boss, Harmsworth of the
farthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery
guttersheet not to mention Paddy Kelly’s Budget, Pue’s
Occurrences and our watchful friend The Skibbereen Eagle.
Why bring in a master of forensic eloquence like
Whiteside? Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof.
LINKS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF
YORE
—Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the
editor cried in his face. Irish volunteers. Where are you
now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. Who have you now like
John Philpot Curran? Psha!
—Well, J. J. O’Molloy said, Bushe K.C., for example.
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—Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes: Bushe, yes. He has
a strain of it in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean
Seymour Bushe.
—He would have been on the bench long ago, the
professor said, only for ... But no matter.
J. J. O’Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and
slowly:
—One of the most polished periods I think I ever
listened to in my life fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe.
It was in that case of fratricide, the Childs murder case.
Bushe defended him.
And in the porches of mine ear did pour.
By the way how did he find that out? He died in his
sleep. Or the other story, beast with two backs?
—What was that? the professor asked.
ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM
—He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O’Molloy
said, of Roman justice as contrasted with the earlier
Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And he cited the Moses of
Michelangelo in the vatican.
—Ha.
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—A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence!
Pause. J. J. O’Molloy took out his cigarettecase.
False lull. Something quite ordinary.
Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit
his cigar.
I have often thought since on looking back over that
strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that
striking of that match, that determined the whole
aftercourse of both our lives.
A POLISHED PERIOD
J. J. O’Molloy resumed, moulding his words:
—He said of it: that stony effigy in frozen music, horned
and terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of
wisdom and of prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or
the hand of sculptor has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and
of soultransfiguring deserves to live, deserves to live.
His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall.
—Fine! Myles Crawford said at once.
—The divine afflatus, Mr O’Madden Burke said.
—You like it? J. J. O’Molloy asked Stephen.
Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and
gesture, blushed. He took a cigarette from the case. J. J.
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