0 Ulysses
to know if her happiness had yet taken place. Mr Dixon,
to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself
whether his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied
him, betokened an ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utri-
cle or male womb or was due, as with the noted physician,
Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the stomach. For answer Mr
Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smote himself
bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admi-
rable droll mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent
creature of her sex though ‘tis pity she’s a trollop): There’s
a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy a con-
ceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw the whole
room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry
rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some
larum in the antechamber.
Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch
student, a little fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated
in the liveliest fashion with the young gentleman and, inter-
rupting the narrative at a salient point, having desired his
visavis with a polite beck to have the obligingness to pass
him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by a ques-
tioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding
had not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an
equivalent but contrary balance of the bottle asked the nar-
rator as plainly as was ever done in words if he might treat
him with a cup of it. Mais bien sûr, noble stranger, said he
cheerily, et mille compliments. That you may and very op-
portunely. There wanted nothing but this cup to crown my
felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust in