s in laughter)_ Great unjust God!

FLORRY: _(Offended)_ Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my
foot's tickling.

_(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past,
yelling.)_

THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea
serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.

_(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)_

STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time.

_(Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his
spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from
which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his
shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden
huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from
the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello,
hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead
and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering
darkness.)_

ALL: What?

THE HOBGOBLIN: _(His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his
eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then
all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs) Il
vient! C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigene! (He whirls round
and round with dervish howls) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He
crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux
sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks) Rien
va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He
springs off into vacuum.)_

FLORRY: _(Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly)_ The end of
the world!

_(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares
over coughs and feetshuffling.)_

THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem!

Open your gates and sing

Hosanna...

_(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star fills from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.
Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End
of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan
filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the
Three Legs of Man.)_

THE END OF THE WORLD: _(with a Scotch accent)_ Wha'll dance the keel
row, the keel row, the keel row?

_(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's vo