Ulysses - Gabler Edition [158]
—Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland filling the country with bugs.
So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, telling him he needn’t trouble about that little matter till the first but if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high and holy by this and by that he’d do the devil and all.
—Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have repetition. That’s the whole secret.
—Rely on me, says Joe.
—Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We want no more strangers in our house.
—O, I’m sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It’s just that Keyes, you see.
—Consider that done, says Joe.
—Very kind of you, says Bloom.
—The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in. We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon robbers here.
—Decree nisi, says J. J.
And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider’s web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when.
—A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that’s what’s the cause of all our misfortunes.
—And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the Police Gazette with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.
—Give us a squint at her, says I.
And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be late after she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor.
—O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!
—There’s hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off of that one, what?
So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on him as long as