nto court._)

BLOOM: _(In court dress)_ Can give best references. Messrs Callan,
Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon,
ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the
highest... Queens of Dublin society. _(Carelessly)_ I was just chatting
this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and
lady Ball, astronomer royal at the levee. Sir Bob, I said...

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength
ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of
brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair)_ Arrest him, constable. He
wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was
in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James
Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as
I sat in a box of the _Theatre Royal_ at a command performance of _La
Cigale_. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made improper overtures
to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the following
Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the post a work
of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled _The Girl with the Three
Pairs of Stays_.

MRS BELLINGHAM: _(In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the
nose, steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell
quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff)_
Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because
he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day
during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the
wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently
he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said,
in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited the
information that it was ablossom of the homegrown potato plant purloined
from a forcingcase of the model farm.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

_(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward)_

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: _(Screaming)_ Stop thief! Hurrah there,
Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

SECOND WATCH: _(Produces handcuffs)_ Here are the darbies.

MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome
compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my
frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself
as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins