s I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off
of that one, what?
So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on
him as long as a late breakfast.
--Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action?
What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide
about the Irish language?
O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the
puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of
that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient
city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after
due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn
counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into
honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael.
--It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal
Sassenachs and their _patois._
So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till
you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your
blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach
a nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and
their colonies and their civilisation.
--Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with
them! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody
thicklugged sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature
worthy of the name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us.
Tonguetied sons of bastards' ghosts.
--The European family, says J. J....
--They're not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin
Egan of Paris. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language
anywhere in Europe except in a _cabinet d'aisance._
And says John Wyse:
--Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo:
--_Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!_
He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the
medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan _Lamh
Dearg Abu_, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty
valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster
silent as the deathless gods.
--What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had
lost a bob and found a tanner.
--Gold cup, says he.
--Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry.
_--Throwaway
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