Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/310

Rh Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's. Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, drinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and done, says I. Gob, ye’ll come home by weeping cross one of these days, I’m thinking.

—Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there, says Alf. U. p. up.

—Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective.

—Ay, says Ned, and he wanted right go wrong to address the court only Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined first.

—Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God I’d give anything to hear him before a judge and jury.

—Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson.

—Me? says Alf. Don’t cast your nasturtiums on my character.

—Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence against you.

—Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not compos mentis. U. p. up.

—Compos your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he’s balmy? Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on with a shoehorn?

—Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law.

—Ha, ha, Alf, says Joe.

—Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife.

—Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half and half.

—How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he…

—Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish nor flesh.

—Nor good red herring, says Joe.

—That what’s I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what that is.

Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explained he meant