f _where ignorance
is bliss_ Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both
instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the
strictly _entre nous_ variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat,
_alias_ the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid
from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work
of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed
the impression that he didn't understand one jot of what was going on.
Funny, very!

There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and
starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the
natives _choza de_, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far
as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He
vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well
as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the
land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively
speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was
just turned fifteen.

--Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers.

The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape.

--Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired.

The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or
no.

--Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he
had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but
he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust,
and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn.

--What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the
boats?

Our _soi-disant_ sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before
answering:

--I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships.
Salt junk all the time.

Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not
likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer,
fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the
globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed,
it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly
what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen
at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a
superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the
not partic