sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had
laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though
why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment
round the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that
afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the
lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.)
and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed
rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to
admit he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles
street and women would and did too a man's similar garments initialled
with Bewley and Draper's marking ink (hers were, that is) if they really
loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still just
then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female's room more than her
company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude
sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he
just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door
with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all
there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper
Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more of her.

--The gunboat, the keeper said.

--It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking,
how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with
disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober
senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of
course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition.
Still no matter what the cause is from...

Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely
remarking:

--In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a
roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to
buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.

The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude,
said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a
stop to _instanter_ to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from
any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, w ere
not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing,
he could truthfully state, he, as a _paterfamilias_, was a stalwart
advoca