he door,
stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore
due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who
noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's
rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his
burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and,
applying its nozz1e to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of
it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a
shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manoeuvre after the
counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared
to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when
duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and
girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all
radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person
or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the
cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief
space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor, evidently
giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise of his
bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where
it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for
new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his
sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporation
stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none other
in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the
parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human
probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about
and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms
of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent
form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent
home comforts all his life who came in for a cool 100 pounds a year
at one time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make
general ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the end of his tether
after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly
stiver. He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a
moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of business if--a
big if, however--he had contrived to cure himself of his p