<p>—Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which?</p>
<p>—That’s mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman.</p>
<p>—And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted.
Also now. This very moment. This very instant.</p>
<p>Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.</p>
<p>—Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs to
us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold by auction
in Morocco like slaves or cattle.</p>
<p>—Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom.</p>
<p>—Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.</p>
<p>That’s an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old lardyface
standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he’d adorn a sweepingbrush, so
he would, if he only had a nurse’s apron on him. And then he collapses all of a
sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag.</p>
<p>—But it’s no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not
life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the
very opposite of that that is really life.</p>
<p>—What? says Alf.</p>
<p>—Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says he
to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there. If he
comes just say I’ll be back in a second. Just a moment.</p>
<p>Who’s hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.</p>
<p>—A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.</p>
<p>—Well, says John Wyse. Isn’t that what we’re told. Love your neighbour.</p>
<p>—That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,
moya! He’s a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.</p>
<p>Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves Mary
Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fair
gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves
Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs
Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady
who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W.
Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves
that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.</p>
<p>—Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, citizen.</p>
<p>—Hurrah, there, says Joe.</p>
<p>—The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.</p>
<p>And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.</p>
<p>—We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. What
about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children
of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text <i>God is love</i> pasted round
the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit in the <i>United
Irishman</i> today about that Zulu chief that’s visiting England?</p>
<p>—What’s that? says Joe.</p>
<p>So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts reading
out:</p>
<p>—A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented
yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord
Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks of
British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. The
delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which the dusky potentate,
in the course of a happy speech, freely translated by the British chaplain, the
reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup
and emphasised the cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British
empire, stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an
illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of England’s
greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great
squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the Royal
Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to the toast
<i>Black and White</i> from the skull of his immediate predecessor in the
dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after which he visited the chief
factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in the visitors’ book, subsequently
executing a charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the course of which he
swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girl
hands.</p>
<p>—Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn’t doubt her. Wonder did he put that
bible to the same use as I would.</p>
<p>—Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land
the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.</p>
<p>—Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.</p>
<p>—No, says the citizen. It’s not signed Shanganagh. It’s only initialled:
P.</p>
<p>—And a very good initial too, says Joe.</p>
<p>—That’s how it’s worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.</p>
<p>—Well, says J. J., if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the Congo
Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what’s this his
name is?</p>
<p>—Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman.</p>
<p>—Yes, that’s the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and flogging
the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them.</p>
<p>—I know where he’s gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.</p>
<p>—Who? says I.</p>
<p>—Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on
<i>Throwaway</i> and he’s gone to gather in the shekels.</p>
<p>—Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a horse
in anger in his life?</p>
<p>—That’s where he’s gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back
that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. Bet you
what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He’s the only man in
Dublin has it. A dark horse.</p>
<p>—He’s a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.</p>
<p>—There you are, says Terry.</p>
<p>Goodbye Ireland I’m going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the yard to
pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was letting off my
<i>(Throwaway</i> twenty to) letting off my load gob says I to myself I knew he
was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in Slattery’s off) in his mind
to get off the mark to (hundred shillings is five quid) and when they were in
the (dark horse) pisser Burke was telling me card party and letting on the
child was sick (gob, must have done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife
speaking down the tube <i>she’s better</i> or <i>she’s</i> (ow!) all a plan so
he could vamoose with the pool if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading
without a licence (ow!) Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up
to those bloody (there’s the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos.</p>
<p>So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it was
Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds of
jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the government and
appointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling Irish industries.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy
eyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the
likes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old
fellow before him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing
bagman, that poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the
country with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms.
Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No security.
Gob, he’s like Lanty MacHale’s goat that’d go a piece of the road with every
one.</p>
<p>—Well, it’s a fact, says John Wyse. And there’s the man now that’ll tell
you all about it, Martin Cunningham.</p>
<p>Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power with him
and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the collector
general’s, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the registration and he drawing
his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the king’s expense.</p>
<p>Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their palfreys.</p>
<p>—Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party.
Saucy knave! To us!</p>
<p>So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.</p>
<p>Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.</p>
<p>—Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.</p>
<p>—Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds.
And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it.</p>
<p>—Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare
larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.</p>
<p>—How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant
countenance, So servest thou the king’s messengers, master Taptun?</p>
<p>An instantaneous change overspread the landlord’s visage.</p>
<p>—Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king’s
messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The king’s
friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house I warrant
me.</p>
<p>—Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trencherman
by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?</p>
<p>Mine host bowed again as he made answer:</p>
<p>—What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of
venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog’s bacon, a boar’s head with
pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of old
Rhenish?</p>
<p>—Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!</p>
<p>—Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare
larder, quotha! ’Tis a merry rogue.</p>
<p>So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.</p>
<p>—Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.</p>
<p>—Isn’t that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen about
Bloom and the Sinn Fein?</p>
<p>—That’s so, says Martin. Or so they allege.</p>
<p>—Who made those allegations? says Alf.</p>
<p>—I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.</p>
<p>—And after all, says John Wyse, why can’t a jew love his country like the
next fellow?</p>
<p>—Why not? says J. J., when he’s quite sure which country it is.</p>
<p>—Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell
is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.</p>
<p>—Who is Junius? says J. J.</p>
<p>—We don’t want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.</p>
<p>—He’s a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was he
drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that in the
castle.</p>
<p>—Isn’t he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.</p>
<p>—Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the
father’s name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the father did.</p>
<p>—That’s the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints
and sages!</p>
<p>—Well, they’re still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that
matter so are we.</p>
<p>—Yes, says J. J., and every male that’s born they think it may be their
Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till he
knows if he’s a father or a mother.</p>
<p>—Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.</p>
<p>—O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his
that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a tin of
Neave’s food six weeks before the wife was delivered.</p>
<p>—<i>En ventre sa mère</i>, says J. J.</p>
<p>—Do you call that a man? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.</p>
<p>—Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power.</p>
<p>—And who does he suspect? says the citizen.</p>
<p>Gob, there’s many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed middlings he
is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with headache like
a totty with her courses. Do you know what I’m telling you? It’d be an act of
God to take a hold of a fellow the like of that and throw him in the bloody
sea. Justifiable homicide, so it would. Then sloping off with his five quid
without putting up a pint of stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as
much as would blind your eye.</p>
<p>—Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can’t wait.</p>
<p>—A wolf in sheep’s clothing, says the citizen. That’s what he is. Virag
from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.</p>
<p>—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.</p>
<p>—Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.</p>
<p>—You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.</p>
<p>—Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us,
says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our shores.</p>
<p>—Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my
prayer.</p>
<p>—Amen, says the citizen.</p>
<p>—And I’m sure He will, says Joe.</p>
<p>And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with acolytes,
thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons, the blessed
company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and monks and
friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and Camaldolesi,
Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and the friars of
Augustine, Brigittines, Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the
children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of
Elijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other:
and friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers,
minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of Dominic, the
friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks of S. Wolstan: and
Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the christian brothers led by
the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And after came all saints and
martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr and S. Isidore Arator and S. James the
Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice
and S. Simon Stylites and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S.
Ferreol and S. Leugarde and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S.
Vincent de Paul and S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and
S. Joseph and S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S.
Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous
and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous and
S. Laurence O’Toole and S. James of Dingle and Compostella and S. Columcille
and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S. Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and
S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S. Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S.
Fursey and S. Fintan and S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas
and S. Ives of Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three
patrons of holy youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John
Berchmans and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and
S. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and
S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis
Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of Bethany
and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and S. Dympna
and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child
Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand
virgins. And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and
harps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed
symbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes,
trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys, dragons,
lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives, soupladles, stars,
snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches, forceps, stags’ horns,
watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a dish, wax candles, aspergills,
unicorns. And as they wended their way by Nelson’s Pillar, Henry street, Mary
street, Capel street, Little Britain street chanting the introit in
<i>Epiphania Domini</i> which beginneth <i>Surge, illuminare</i> and thereafter
most sweetly the gradual <i>Omnes</i> which saith <i>de Saba venient</i> they
did divers wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead to life,
multiplying fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering various
articles which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures,
blessing and prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the
reverend Father O’Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the good
fathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co,
limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine and brandy
shippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption on
the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed the mullioned windows
and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and the capitals and the
pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches and the spires and the
cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with blessed water and prayed that
God might bless that house as he had blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob and make the angels of His light to inhabit therein. And entering he
blessed the viands and the beverages and the company of all the blessed
answered his prayers.</p>
<p>—<i>Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.</i></p>
<p>—<i>Qui fecit cœlum et terram.</i></p>
<p>—<i>Dominus vobiscum.</i></p>
<p>—<i>Et cum spiritu tuo.</i></p>
<p>And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed and
they all with him prayed:</p>
<p>—<i>Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde
super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatem
Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis Tui
corporis sanitatem et animæ tutelam Te auctore percipiat per Christum Dominum
nostrum.</i></p>
<p>—And so say all of us, says Jack.</p>
<p>—Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.</p>
<p>—Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.</p>
<p>I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when be
damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry.</p>
<p>—I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope I’m
not...</p>
<p>—No, says Martin, we’re ready.</p>
<p>Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. Mean
bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There’s a jew for
you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to five.</p>
<p>—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen.</p>
<p>—Beg your pardon, says he.</p>
<p>—Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.</p>
<p>—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It’s a
secret.</p>
<p>And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.</p>
<p>—Bye bye all, says Martin.</p>
<p>And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or whatever
you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all at sea and up
with them on the bloody jaunting car.</p>
<p>—Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.</p>
<p>The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the
helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all
sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh to
starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark, they
linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashions
about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to
another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet
of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair.
Even so did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters.
And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the
waves.</p>
<p>But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the citizen
getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the dropsy, and he
cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spitting
and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf round him like a leprechaun
trying to peacify him.</p>
<p>—Let me alone, says he.</p>
<p>And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls out of
him:</p>
<p>—Three cheers for Israel!</p>
<p>Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ’ sake and
don’t be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there’s always some
bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing. Gob,
it’d turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would.</p>
<p>And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and Martin
telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and Joe at
him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers calling
for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the car and hold
his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts singing <i>If the
man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew</i> and a slut shouts out of her:</p>
<p>—Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!</p>
<p>And says he:</p>
<p>—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the
Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.</p>
<p>—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.</p>
<p>—Whose God? says the citizen.</p>
<p>—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew
like me.</p>
<p>Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.</p>
<p>—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name.
By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.</p>
<p>—Stop! Stop! says Joe.</p>
<p>A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from the
metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid farewell to
Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom’s, printers to His
Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant clime of
Százharminczbrojúgulyás-Dugulás (Meadow of Murmuring Waters). The ceremony
which went off with great <i>éclat</i> was characterised by the most affecting
cordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish
artists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a
large section of the community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver
casket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work
which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob <i>agus</i> Jacob. The
departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were
present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up
the wellknown strains of <i>Come Back to Erin</i>, followed immediately by
<i>Rakóczsy’s March</i>. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along the
coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three Rock
Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox
and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara
hills, the reeks of M’Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve
Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from
a big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the
mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute
from the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers
while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, the
flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute as were also
those of the electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light.
<i>Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra!</i> Gone but not
forgotten.</p>
<p>Gob, the devil wouldn’t stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow and
out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting like a
stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen’s royal theatre:</p>
<p>—Where is he till I murder him?</p>
<p>And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.</p>
<p>—Bloody wars, says I, I’ll be in for the last gospel.</p>
<p>But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag’s head round the other way and
off with him.</p>
<p>—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!</p>
<p>Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun was
in his eyes or he’d have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into the
county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after the car
like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox
clattering along the street.</p>
<p>The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The observatory
of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth grade of
Mercalli’s scale, and there is no record extant of a similar seismic
disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year of the
rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part of the
metropolis which constitutes the Inn’s Quay ward and parish of Saint Michan
covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole or perch.
All the lordly residences in the vicinity of the palace of justice were
demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of the
catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of
ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have been buried
alive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves
were accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character.
An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk
of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle
with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the erudite
and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of
Dublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island
respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant’s causeway,
the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach
of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that
they observed an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through
the atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by
west. Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all
parts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously
pleased to decree that a special <i>missa pro defunctis</i> shall be celebrated
simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all the
episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in
suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so unexpectedly
called away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of <i>débris,</i>
human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great
Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall,
assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry under
the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir
Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. C. B.,
M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus.
Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I.</p>
<p>You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that lottery
ticket on the side of his poll he’d remember the gold cup, he would so, but
begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and battery and Joe for
aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by furious driving as sure as
God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he let a volley of oaths after him.</p>
<p>—Did I kill him, says he, or what?</p>
<p>And he shouting to the bloody dog:</p>
<p>—After him, Garry! After him, boy!</p>
<p>And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsface
on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for all
he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to five! Jesus, he
took the value of it out of him, I promise you.</p>
<p>When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the
chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the chariot,
clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun, fair
as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon Him. And there
came a voice out of heaven, calling: <i>Elijah! Elijah!</i> And He answered
with a main cry: <i>Abba! Adonai!</i> And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom
Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle
of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe’s in Little Green street like a shot off a
shovel.</p>
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