hine with a time fuse.

BLOOM: No, no. Pig's feet. I was at a funeral.

FIRST WATCH: _(Draws his truncheon)_ Liar!

_(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy
Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath.
He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown
mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all
the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)_

PADDY DIGNAM: _(In a hollow voice)_ It is true. It was my funeral.
Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease
from natural causes.

_(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)_

BLOOM: _(In triumph)_ You hear?

PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list!

BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau.

SECOND WATCH: _(Blesses himself)_ How is that possible?

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism.

PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks.

A VOICE: O rocks.

PADDY DIGNAM: _(Earnestly)_ Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton,
solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk.
Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The
poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that
bottle of sherry. _(He looks round him)_ A lamp. I must satisfy an
animal need. That buttermilk didn't agree with me.

_(The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding
a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey,
chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap,
holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.)_

FATHER COFFEY: _(Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak)_ Namine.
Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen.

JOHN O'CONNELL: _(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone)_ Dignam,
Patrick T, deceased.

PADDY DIGNAM: _(With pricked up ears, winces)_ Overtones. _(He wriggles
forward and places an ear to the ground)_ My master's voice!

JOHN O'CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand.
Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.

_(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail
stiffpointcd, his ears cocked.)_

PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

_(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether
over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on
fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffle