(THEY WHISK BLACK MASKS FROM RAW BABBY FACES:  THEN, CHUCKLING, CHORTLING, TRUMMING, TWANGING, THEY DIDDLE DIDDLE CAKEWALK DANCE AWAY.)

Bloom:  (With A sour TENDERISH smile) A little frivol, shall we, if you are so inclined?  Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a second?

Mrs Breen:  (Screams gaily) O, you ruck!  You ought to see yourself!

Bloom:  For old sake’ sake.  I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage mingling of our different little conjugials.  You know I had a soft corner for you. (GLOOMILY) ’Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle.

Mrs Breen:  Glory Alice, you do look a holy show!  Killing simply. (She puts out her hand INQUISITIVELY) What are you hiding behind your back?  Tell us, there’s a dear.

Bloom:  (SEIZES her wrist with his free hand) Josie Powell that was, prettiest deb in Dublin.  How time flies by!  Do you remember, harking back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson’s housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading?  Subject, what is in this snuffbox?

Mrs Breen:  You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part.  You were always a favourite with the ladies.

Bloom:  (SQUIRE of dames, in dinner jacket with WATEREDSILK facings, blue MASONIC badge in his buttonhole, black bow and motherofpearl STUDS, A prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty.

Mrs Breen:  The dear dead days beyond recall.  Love’s old sweet song.

Bloom:  (MEANINGFULLY dropping his voice) I confess I’m teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person’s something is a little teapot at present.

Mrs Breen:  (GUSHINGLY) Tremendously teapot!  London’s teapot and I’m simply teapot all over me! (She rubs sides with him) After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.  Under the mistletoe.  Two is company.

Bloom:  (WEARING A purple Napoleon hat with an amber HALFMOON, his fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist MEATY palm which she SURRENDERS gently) The witching hour of night.  I took the splinter out of this hand, carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her finger A ruby ring) la CI DAREM la MANO.

Mrs Breen:  (In A ONEPIECE evening frock executed in moonlight blue, A tinsel SYLPH’S DIADEM on her brow with her DANCECARD fallen beside her MOONBLUE satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly) VOGLIO E non.  You’re hot!  You’re scalding!  The left hand nearest the heart.

Bloom:  When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the beast.  I can never forgive you for that. (His CLENCHED fist at his brow) Think what it means.  All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely) Woman, it’s breaking me!

(Denis Breen, WHITETALLHATTED, with wisdom Hely’s sandwich- boards, SHUFFLES past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left.  Little Alf Bergan, CLOAKED in the PALL of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)

Alf Bergan:  (POINTS jeering at the SANDWICHBOARDS) U. p:  Up.

Mrs Breen:  (To bloom) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him the glad eye) Why didn’t you kiss the spot to make it well?  You wanted to.

Bloom:  (SHOCKED) Molly’s best friend!  Could you?

Mrs Breen:  (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers A pigeon kiss)
Hnhn.  The answer is a lemon.  Have you a little present for me there?

Bloom:  (OFFHANDEDLY) Kosher.  A snack for supper.  The home without potted meat is incomplete.  I was at Leah.  Mrs Bandmann Palmer.  Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare.  Unfortunately threw away the programme.  Rattling good place round there for pigs’ feet.  Feel.

(Richie Goulding, three ladies’ hats pinned on his head, appears WEIGHTED
to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and ward on which A skull
and crossbones are painted in white limewash.  He OPENS it and shows it
full of polonies, KIPPERED herrings, Findon HADDIES and TIGHTPACKED
pills.)

Richie:  Best value in Dub.

(Bald pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his napkin,
waiting to wait.)

Pat:  (ADVANCES with A tilted dish of SPILLSPILLING gravy) Steak and kidney.  Bottle of lager.  Hee hee hee.  Wait till I wait.

Richie:  Goodgod.  Inev erate inall …

(With hanging head he marches DOGGEDLY forward.  The NAVVY, lurching by,
gores him with his flaming PRONGHORN.)

Richie:  (With A cry of pain, his hand to his back) Ah!  Bright’s!  Lights!

Bloom:  (POINTS to the NAVVY) A spy.  Don’t attract attention.  I hate stupid crowds.  I am not on pleasure bent.  I am in a grave predicament.

Mrs Breen:  Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story.

Bloom:  I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here. 
But you must never tell.  Not even Molly.  I have a most particular reason.

Mrs Breen:  (All agog) O, not for worlds.

Bloom:  Let’s walk on.  Shall us?

Mrs Breen:  Let’s.

(The bawd makes an unheeded sign.  Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen.  The
terrier follows, WHINING PITEOUSLY, wagging his tail.)

The bawd:  Jewman’s melt!

Bloom:  (In an oatmeal sporting suit, A sprig of WOODBINE in the LAPEL, tony buff shirt, shepherd’s PLAID saint ANDREW’S cross SCARFTIE, white SPATS, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in BANDOLIER and A grey BILLYCOCK hat) Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?

Mrs Breen:  (In smart SAXE TAILORMADE, white velours hat and spider veil)
Leopardstown.

Bloom:  I mean, Leopardstown.  And Molly won seven shillings on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I’ll lay you what you like she did it on purpose …

Mrs Breen:  She did, of course, the cat!  Don’t tell me!  Nice adviser!

Bloom:  Because it didn’t suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of a fullstop.

Mrs Breen:  (SQUEEZES his arm, SIMPERS) Naughty cruel I was!

Bloom:  (Low, SECRETLY, ever more rapidly) And Molly was eating a sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher’s lunch basket.  Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style.  She was …

Mrs Breen:  Too …

Bloom:  Yes.  And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O’Reilly were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across ...

Mrs Breen:  (EAGERLY) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

(She fades from his side.  Followed by the WHINING dog he walks on towards
HELLSGATES.  In an archway A standing woman, bent forward, her feet apart,
PISSES COWILY.  Outside A shuttered pub A bunch of loiterers listen to A
tale which their BROKENSNOUTED GAFFER RASPS out with RAUCOUS humour.  An
ARMLESS pair of them flop WRESTLING, growling, in maimed SODDEN
PLAYFIGHT.)

The GAFFER:  (CROUCHES, his voice twisted in his snout) And when Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan’s plasterers.

The loiterers:  (GUFFAW with cleft PALATES) O jays!

(Their PAINTSPECKLED hats WAG.  SPATTERED with size and lime of their
lodges they FRISK LIMBLESSLY about him.)

Bloom:  Coincidence too.  They think it funny.  Anything but that.  Broad daylight.  Trying to walk.  Lucky no woman.

The loiterers:  Jays, that’s a good one.  Glauber salts.  O jays, into the men’s porter.

(Bloom passes.  Cheap whores, singly, coupled, SHAWLED, DISHEVELLED, call from LANES, doors, corners.)

The whores: 

    Are you going far, queer fellow? 
    How’s your middle leg? 
    Got a match on you? 
    Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

(He PLODGES through their SUMP towards the lighted street beyond.  From A bulge of window curtains A gramophone REARS A battered brazen trunk.  In the shadow A SHEBEENKEEPER HAGGLES with the NAVVY and the two Redcoats.)

The NAVVY:  (BELCHING) Where’s the bloody house?

The SHEBEENKEEPER:  Purdon street.  Shilling a bottle of stout.  Respectable woman.

The NAVVY:  (GRIPPING the two Redcoats, STAGGERS forward with them) Come on, you British army!

PRIVATE Carr:  (Behind his back) He aint half balmy.

PRIVATE COMPTON:  (LAUGHS) What ho!

PRIVATE Carr:  (To the NAVVY) Portobello barracks canteen.  You ask for
Carr.  Just Carr.