1 Ulysses
the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon
in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, oth-
erwise pocket.
—They’re great for the cold steel, somebody who was evi-
dently quite in the dark said for the benefit of them all. That
was why they thought the park murders of the invincibles
was done by foreigners on account of them using knives.
At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of where
ignorance is bliss Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own partic-
ular way, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in
a religious silence of the strictly entre nous variety however,
towards where Skin-the-Goat, alias the keeper, not turning
a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair.
His inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a perfect
study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the impres-
sion that he didn’t understand one jot of what was going on.
Funny, very!
There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was
reading in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening jour-
nal, another the card with the natives choza de, another the
seaman’s discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he was personally
concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He viv-
idly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place
as well as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously
in the days of the land troubles, when it took the civilised
world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the eighties,
eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen.
—Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them pa-
pers.