10 Ulysses
own which the other two were as mutually innocent of as
the babe unborn. Eventually, however, both their eyes met
and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other was
endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily
determined to help him himself and so he accordingly took
hold of the neck of the mediumsized glass recipient which
contained the fluid sought after and made a capacious hole
in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the same time,
however, a considerable degree of attentiveness in order not
to upset any of the beer that was in it about the place.
The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress
an epitome of the course of life. Neither place nor council
was lacking in dignity. The debaters were the keenest in the
land, the theme they were engaged on the loftiest and most
vital. The high hall of Horne’s house had never beheld an
assembly so representative and so varied nor had the old
rafters of that establishment ever listened to a language so
encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers
was there at the foot of the table in his striking Highland
garb, his face glowing from the briny airs of the Mull of
Galloway. There too, opposite to him, was Lynch whose
countenance bore already the stigmata of early depravity
and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place
assigned to Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was
seated in stolid repose the squat form of Madden. The chair
of the resident indeed stood vacant before the hearth but
on either flank of it the figure of Bannon in explorer’s kit of
tweed shorts and salted cowhide brogues contrasted sharply
with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Mala-