es it work here, Tommy? he asked.

--Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later.

He followed M'Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court.

--He's a hero, he said simply.

--I know, M'Coy said. The drain, you mean.

--Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole.

They passed Dan Lowry's musichall where Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile.

Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall
Lenehan showed M'Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes like
a bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it, half
choked with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky's vest and
all, with the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope round
the poor devil and the two were hauled up.

--The act of a hero, he said.

At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past
them for Jervis street.

--This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam's
to see Sceptre's starting price. What's the time by your gold watch and
chain?

M'Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses' sombre office, then at O'Neill's
clock.

--After three, he said. Who's riding her?

--O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is.

While he waited in Temple bar M'Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle
pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy
get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark.

The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal
cavalcade.

--Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons
in there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn't an
earthly. Through here.

They went up the steps and under Merchants' arch. A darkbacked figure
scanned books on the hawker's cart.

--There he is, Lenehan said.

--Wonder what he's buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind.

--_Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye,_ Lenehan said.

--He's dead nuts on sales, M'Coy said. I was with him one day and he
bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were
fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and
comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about.

Lenehan laughed.

--I'll tell you a damn good one about comets' tails, he said. Come over
in the sun.

They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the
riverwall.

Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan's, late Fehrenbac