Ulysses
poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of
speech.
And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five
o’clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the
bobby, 14A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after
closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard,
drinking porter out of teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the
shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he
serving mass in Adam and Eve’s when he was young with his eyes shut,
who wrote the new testament, and the old testament, and hugging and
smugging. And the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his
pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed
and the two shawls screeching laughing at one another. _How is your
testament? Have you got an old testament?_ Only Paddy was passing
there, I tell you what. Then see him of a Sunday with his little
concubine of a wife, and she wagging her tail up the aisle of the
chapel with her patent boots on her, no less, and her violets, nice as
pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney’s sister. And the old
prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street couples. Gob, Jack
made him toe the line. Told him if he didn’t patch up the pot, Jesus,
he’d kick the shite out of him.
So Terry brought the three pints.
—Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen.
—_Slan leat_, says he.
—Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen.
Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small
fortune to keep him in drinks.
—Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe.
—Friend of yours, says Alf.
—Nannan? says Joe. The mimber?
—I won’t mention any names, says Alf.
—I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William
Field, M. P., the cattle traders.
—Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of
all countries and the idol of his own.
So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and
the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen
sending them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his
sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the
guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a
knacker’s yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here’s my head
and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot
for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how
to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used
to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O’Dowd crying her eyes out
with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn’t loosen her farting
strings but old cod’s eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do
it. What’s your programme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor
animals suffer and experts say and the best known remedy that doesn’t
cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. Gob,
he’d have a soft hand under a hen.
Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for
us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then
comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her
fresh egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook.
—Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London
to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons.
—Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see
him, as it happens.
—Well, he’s going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight.
—That’s too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr
Field is going. I couldn’t phone. No. You’re sure?
—Nannan’s going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question
tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the
park. What do you think of that, citizen? _The Sluagh na h-Eireann_.
Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of my
honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right
honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that
these animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is
forthcoming as to their pathological condition?
Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in
possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole
house. I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the
honourable member’s question is in the affirmative.
Mr Orelli O’Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued
for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the
Phoenix park?
Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative.
Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman’s famous
Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury
bench? (O! O!)
Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question.
Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don’t hesitate to shoot.
(Ironical opposition cheers.)
The speaker: Order! Order!
(The house rises. Cheers.)
—There’s the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There
he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion
of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best
throw, citizen?
—_Na bacleis_, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a
time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.
—Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.
—Is that really a fact? says Alf.
—Yes, says Bloom. That’s well known. Did you not know that?
So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of
lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil
and building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course
Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower’s heart
violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a
straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: _Look at, Bloom.
Do you see that straw? That’s a straw_. Declare to my aunt he’d talk
about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.
A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of _Brian
O’Ciarnain’s_ in _Sraid na Bretaine Bheag_, under the auspices of
_Sluagh na h-Eireann_, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the
importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and
ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The
venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the
attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by
the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed,
a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high
standard of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the
revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancient Panceltic
forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected worker in the cause of
our old tongue, Mr Joseph M’Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for
the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised
morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best
traditions of manly strength and prowess handed down to us from ancient
ages. L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses,
having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the
discussion to a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty
plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy
rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis’ evergreen verses
(happily too familiar to need recalling here) _A nation once again_ in
the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without
fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish
Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were
heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only
our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its
superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was
vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be
noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives
of the press and the bar and the other learned professions. The
proceedings then terminated.
Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L.
L. D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S.
Sp.; the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev.
P. J. Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr.
Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T.
Maher, S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery,
V. F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O.
M.; the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the rev.
M. A. Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr
M’Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. D.
Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy
canon Gorman, P. P.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P.
Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc.
—Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that
Keogh-Bennett match?
—No, says Joe.
—I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.
—Who? Blazes? says Joe.
And says Bloom:
—What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training
the eye.
—Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up
the odds and he swatting all the time.
—We know him, says the citizen. The traitor’s son. We know what put
English gold in his pocket.
—True for you, says Joe.
And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the
blood, asking Alf:
—Now, don’t you think, Bergan?
—Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only
a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See
the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God,
he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made
him puke what he never ate.
It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were
scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns.
Handicapped as he was by lack of poundage, Dublin’s pet lamb made up
for it by superlative skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks
was a gruelling for both champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had
tapped some lively claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had
been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in
some neat work on the pet’s nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The
soldier got to business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which
the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the
point of Bennett’s jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him
with a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to
handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout
ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The
Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he
was liberally drenched with water and when the bell went came on gamey
and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in
jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two
fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice
cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his
footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during
which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from
his opponent’s mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and
landed a terrific left to Battling Bennett’s stomach, flooring him