s told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and
compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly
cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and
relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course
intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King's proctor tries to show
cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made absolute. But as
for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one
another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till
the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for
the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being
close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on
the historic _fracas_ when the fallen leader's, who notoriously stuck to
his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery,
(leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or
possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the
_Insuppressible_ or no it was _United Ireland_ (a by no means by the
by appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or
something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from
the facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging
occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. Though
palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though
carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went
a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast
discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a
pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were
particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a
minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that
of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach,
fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell's) a silk one was
inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was
the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence
meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost
celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away
from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a
stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more
fo