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.