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Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulg-
ing out the dingy curtains. The shopman’s uncombed grey
head came out and his unshaven reddened face, coughing.
He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the floor. He
put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it,
and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired.
Mr Bloom beheld it.
Mastering his troubled breath, he said:
—I’ll take this one.
The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.
—Sweets of Sin, he said, tapping on it. That’s a good one.
The lacquey by the door of Dillon’s auctionrooms shook
his handbell twice again and viewed himself in the chalked
mirror of the cabinet.
Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats
of the bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine.
Those lovely curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling
new at two guineas. Any advance on five shillings? Going
for five shillings.
The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it:
—Barang!
Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen
to their sprint. J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and
H. T. Gahan, their stretched necks wagging, negotiated the
curve by the College library.
Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round
from Williams’s row. He halted near his daughter.