r the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone
instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of
knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to
the donor and thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you,
sir_, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the
legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the
course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after
the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory
after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave.

On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes
of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing 1530
immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the
wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case
for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate
husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from
the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial
moment in a loving position locked in one another's arms, drawing
attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic
rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and
master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not
receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook
the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though
possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite
possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical
bias, believed and didn't make the smallest bones about saying so either
that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting
list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world
and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when,
neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life and was on
for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on
her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred
on another, the cause of many _liaisons_ between still attractive
married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as
several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt.

It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of
brains as his neigh