Ulysses
his hat. Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of
gooseberry fool from an inclined plate. Occasionally he
removed from his lips the traces of food by means of a lac-
erated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper.
What two phenomena of senescence were more fre-
quent?
The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation con-
sequent upon repletion.
What object offered partial consolation for these remi-
niscences?
The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certifi-
cate of the possession of scrip.
Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of for-
tune, from which these supports protected him, and by
elimination of all positive values to a negligible negative ir-
rational unreal quantity.
Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that
of the outdoor hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the
recovery of bad and doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy
cess collector. Mendicancy: that of the fraudulent bankrupt
with negligible assets paying 1s. 4d. in the pound, sand-
wichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant,
insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, su-
perannuated bailiffs man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport,
pickthank, eccentric public laughingstock seated on bench
of public park under discarded perforated umbrella. Des-
titution: the inmate of Old Man’s House (Royal Hospital)
Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson’s Hospital for reduced
but respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want