rea railings. It fell on the
path.
One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the
minstrel's cap, saying:
--There, sir.
* * * * *
Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen.
--Did you put in the books? Boody asked.
Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds
twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.
--They wouldn't give anything on them, she said.
Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles
tickled by stubble.
--Where did you try? Boody asked.
--M'Guinness's.
Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.
--Bad cess to her big face! she cried.
Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.
--What's in the pot? she asked.
--Shirts, Maggy said.
Boody cried angrily:
--Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?
Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:
--And what's in this?
A heavy fume gushed in answer.
--Peasoup, Maggy said.
--Where did you get it? Katey asked.
--Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.
The lacquey rang his bell.
--Barang!
Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:
--Give us it here.
Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey,
sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her
mouth random crumbs:
--A good job we have that much. Where's Dilly?
--Gone to meet father, Maggy said.
Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:
--Our father who art not in heaven.
Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed:
--Boody! For shame!
A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the
Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed
around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains,
between the Customhouse old dock and George's quay.
* * * * *
The blond girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling
fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper
and a small jar.
--Put these in first, will you? he said.
--Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.
--That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.
She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe
shamefaced peaches.
Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the
fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red
t
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