nous I
ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. _(He
closes his eyes an instant)_ Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of
the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a
visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved
sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)

BLOOM: _Buenas noches, senorita Blanca, que calle es esta?_

THE FIGURE: (_Impassive, raises a signal arm_) Password. _Sraid Mabbot._

BLOOM: Haha. _Merci._ Esperanto. _Slan leath. (He mutters)_ Gaelic
league spy, sent by that fireeater.

_(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps
left, ragsackman left.)_

BLOOM: I beg. (_He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on_.)

BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted
by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who
lost my way and contributed to the columns of the _Irish Cyclist_ the
letter headed _In darkest Stepaside_. Keep, keep, keep to the right.
Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer
makes for. Wash off his sins of the world.

_(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against
Bloom.)_

BLOOM: O

_(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.
Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket,
sweets of sin, potato soap.)_

BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch
your purse.

_(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form
sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan
of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned
spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are
on the drawn face.)_

RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with
drunken goy ever. So you catch no money.

BLOOM: _(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen,
feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi._

RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? _(with
feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom)_ Are you not
my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold
who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham
and Jacob?

BLOOM: _(With precaution)_ I suppose so, father. Mosenthal