Mr Bloom said gaily, Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know.
– Go away! Isn’t that grand for her?
– Yes, in a photographer’s there. Getting on like a house on fire. How are all your charges?
– All on the baker’s list, Mrs Breen said.
How many has she? No other in sight.
– You’re in black I see. You have no…
– No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.
Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who’s dead, when and what did he die of? Turn up like a bad penny.
– O dear me, Mrs Breen said, I hope it wasn’t any near relation.
May as well get her sympathy.
– Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.
Your funeral’s tomorrow
While you’re coming through the rye.
Diddlediddle dumdum
Diddlediddle…
– Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen’s womaneyes said melancholily.
Now that’s quite enough about that. Just quietly : husband.
– And your lord and master?
Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn’t lost them anyhow.
– O, don’t be talking, she said. He’s a caution to rattlesnakes. He’s in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me heartscalded. Wait till I show you.
Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from Harrison’s. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom’s gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or they’d taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the table.
Opening her handbag, chipped leather hatpin : ought to have a guard on those things. Stick it in a chap’s eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. Husband barging. Where’s the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Ave you feeding your little brother’s family? Soiled handkerchief : medicinebottle. Pastile that was fell. What is she?…
– There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then. Do you know what he did last night?
Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him wide in alarm, yet smiling.
– What? Mr Bloom asked.
Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.
– Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.
Indiges.
– Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.
– The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.
She took a folded postcard from her handbag.
– Read that, she said. He got it this morning.
– What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.?
– U.P. : up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It’s a great shame for them whoever he is.
– Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.
She took back the card, sighing.
– And now he’s going round to Mr Menton’s office. He’s going to take an action for ten thousand pounds, he says.
She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.
Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque, three old grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than Molly.
See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.
He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent. Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I’m hungry too. Flakes of pastry on the gusset of her dress : daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell that was. In Luke Doyle’s long’ ago, Dolphin’s Barn, the charades. U.P. : up.
Change the subject.
– Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy, Mr Bloom asked.
– Mina Purefoy? she said.
Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers’ club. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.
– Yes.
– I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She’s in the lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She’s three days bad now.
– O, Mr Bloom said. I’m sorry to hear that.
– Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It’s a very stiff birth, the nurse told me.
– O, Mr Bloom said.
His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in compassion. Dth! Dth!
– I’m sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That’s terrible for her.
Mrs Breen nodded.
– She was taken bad on the Tuesday…..
Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her.
– Mind! Let this man pass.
A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river, staring with a rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavy stringed glass. Tight as a skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.
– Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. Watch!
– Who is he if it’s a fair question. Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty?
– His name is Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Bloom said, smiling. Watch!
– He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these days.
She broke off suddenly.
– There he is, she said. I must go after him. Good bye. Remember me to Molly, won’t you?
– I will, Mr Bloom said.
He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison’s,
