Ulysses
guage to study but he could never learn a word of it except
the first personal pronoun which he copied out big and got
off by heart and if ever he went out for a walk he filled his
pockets with chalk to write it upon what took his fancy, the
side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale of cotton or a
corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland were soon as
fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Ste-
phen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no
help was toward, as the ungrate women were all of one
mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bun-
dles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned
the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in
the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed
anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three
times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bum-
boat and put to sea to recover the main of America. Which
was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, of the composing by a
boatswain of that rollicking chanty:—Pope Peter’s but a pissabed.
A man’s a man for a’ that.Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now ap-
peared in the doorway as the students were finishing their
apologue accompanied with a friend whom he had just ren-
countered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, who
had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour
or a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mul-
ligan was civil enough to express some relish of it all the