Ulysses
Ben! He’s always doing a good turn for someone. Hold
hard!
He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge
an instant.
—There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets.
Ben Dollard’s loose blue cutaway and square hat above
large slops crossed the quay in full gait from the metal
bridge. He came towards them at an amble, scratching ac-
tively behind his coattails.
As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted:
—Hold that fellow with the bad trousers.
—Hold him now, Ben Dollard said.
Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various
points of Ben Dollard’s figure. Then, turning to Father
Cowley with a nod, he muttered sneeringly:
—That’s a pretty garment, isn’t it, for a summer’s day?
—Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard
growled furiously, I threw out more clothes in my time than
you ever saw.
He stood beside them beaming, on them first and on his
roomy clothes from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked
fluff, saying:
—They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow.
—Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard
said. Thanks be to God he’s not paid yet.
—And how is that basso profondo, Benjamin? Father
Cowley asked.
Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell,
murmuring, glassyeyed, strode past the Kildare street club.