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ish goggles which he very slowly hooked over his nose and
both ears.
—Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage
like the townclerk queried.
—Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard,
who seemingly was a bit of a literary cove in his own small
way, staring out of seagreen portholes as you might well de-
scribe them as, I uses goggles reading. Sand in the Red Sea
done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, man-
ner of speaking. The Arabian Nights Entertainment was my
favourite and Red as a Rose is She.
Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon
Lord only knows what, found drowned or the exploits of
King Willow, Iremonger having made a hundred and some-
thing second wicket not out for Notts, during which time
(completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely oc-
cupied loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot
which manifestly pinched him as he muttered against who-
ever it was sold it, all of them who were sufficiently awake
enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, that is
to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial
remark.
To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation,
was the first to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their
welcome having first and foremost, being as good as his
word that he would foot the bill for the occasion, taken the
wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as
a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others
were not looking to the effect that the amount due was forth-