--Have you a cheese sandwich?

--Yes, sir.

Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good gla.s.s of burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cuc.u.mber, Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. G.o.d made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab.

--Wife well?

--Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?

--Yes, sir.

Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.

--Doing any singing those times?

Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match.

Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him.

Does no harm. Free ad.

--She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard perhaps.

--No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up?

The curate served.

--How much is that?

--Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir.

Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. _Mr MacTrigger_. Easier than the dreamy creamy stuff. _His five hundred wives. Had the time of their lives._

--Mustard, sir?

--Thank you.

He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. _Their lives_. I have it. _It grew bigger and bigger and bigger_.

--Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part shares and part profits.

--Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed up in it?

A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart. He raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.

His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly, longingly.

Wine.

He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his winegla.s.s delicately down.

--Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact.

No fear: no brains.

Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.

--He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks. By G.o.d, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling me...

Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his gla.s.s. No, snuffled it up.

--For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by G.o.d till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by G.o.d, Blazes is a hairy chap.

Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckst.i.tched shirtsleeves, cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the parsnips.

--And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give us a good one for the Gold cup?

--I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a horse.

--You're right there, Nosey Flynn said.

Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the chill off.

Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like the way it curves there.

--I wouldn't do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruined many a man, the same horses.

Vintners' sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose.

--True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you're in the know. There's no straight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He's giving Sceptre today. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord Howard de Walden's, won at Epsom. Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before.

--That so? Davy Byrne said...

He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned its pages.

--I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit of horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm, Rothschild's filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow cap. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt. He put me off it.

Ay.

He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the flutes.

--Ay, he said, sighing.

Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull.

Will I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him forget. Go and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again.

Cold nose he'd have kissing a woman. Still they might like. p.r.i.c.kly beards they like. Dogs' cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling stomach's Skye terrier in the City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in her lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy!

Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can.

Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She...

Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy lobsters' claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of sh.e.l.ls, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good.