—­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 wineglass 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 God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling me ...

Hope that dewdrop doesn’t come down into his glass.  No, snuffled it up.

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

Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched 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.