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that stale cake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the
wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled,
flapping.
The hungry famished gull
Flaps o’er the waters dull.
That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then
Shakespeare has no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the
language it is. The thoughts. Solemn.
Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit
Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.
—Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!
His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her
stand. Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny
peels: polishes them up with a rag or a handkerchief.
Wait. Those poor birds.
He halted again and bought from the old applewoman
two Banbury cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste
and threw its fragments down into the Liffey. See that?
The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from their
heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.
Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the
powdery crumb from his hands. They never expected that.
Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have, all seabirds,
gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here
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sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes.
Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to
live on them.
They wheeled flapping weakly. I’m not going to throw
any more. Penny quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not
even a caw. They spread foot and mouth disease too. If
you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes like that.
Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
not salty? How is that?
His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a
rowboat rock at anchor on the treacly swells lazily its
plastered board.
Kino’s 11/- Trousers
Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the
corporation. How can you own water really? It’s always
flowing in a stream, never the same, which in the stream
of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of places
are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be
stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly
confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn’t cost him a red like
Maginni the dancing master self advertisement. Got
fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for that
matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button.
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Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST
110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him.
If he ...?
O!
Eh?
No ... No.
No, no. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t surely?
No, no.
Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes.
Think no more about that. After one. Timeball on the
ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time. Fascinating little book
that is of sir Robert Ball’s. Parallax. I never exactly
understood. There’s a priest. Could ask him. Par it’s
Greek: parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it
till I told her about the transmigration. O rocks!
Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the
ballastoffice. She’s right after all. Only big words for
ordinary things on account of the sound. She’s not exactly
witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking.
Still, I don’t know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base
barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and you’d think
he was singing into a barrel. Now, isn’t that wit. They
used to call him big Ben. Not half as witty as calling him
base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get outside of a
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baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away
number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.
A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched
slowly towards him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across
their boards. Bargains. Like that priest they are this
morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the
scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.
Wisdom Hely’s. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread
from under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and
munched as he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day,
walking along the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin
and bone together, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl:
no, M Glade’s men. Doesn’t bring in any business either. I
suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two
smart girls sitting inside writing letters, copybooks,
envelopes, blottingpaper. I bet that would have caught on.
Smart girls writing something catch the eye at once.
Everyone dying to know what she’s writing. Get twenty
of them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger
in the pie. Women too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn’t
have it of course because he didn’t think of it himself first.
Or the inkbottle I suggested with a false stain of black
celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree’s potted under
the obituaries, cold meat department. You can’t lick ‘em.
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