He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, laughing to himself.  Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered cheeks and neck.

Buck Mulligan’s gay voice went on.

—­My name is absurd too:  Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls.  But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn’t it?  Tripping and sunny like the buck himself.  We must go to Athens.  Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?

He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried: 

—­Will he come?  The jejune jesuit!

Ceasing, he began to shave with care.

—­Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.

—­Yes, my love?

—­How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.

—­God, isn’t he dreadful? he said frankly.  A ponderous Saxon.  He thinks you’re not a gentleman.  God, these bloody English!  Bursting with money and indigestion.  Because he comes from Oxford.  You know, Dedalus, you have the real Oxford manner.  He can’t make you out.  O, my name for you is the best:  Kinch, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

—­He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said.  Where is his guncase?

—­A woful lunatic!  Mulligan said.  Were you in a funk?

—­I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear.  Out here in the dark with a man I don’t know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a black panther.  You saved men from drowning.  I’m not a hero, however.  If he stays on here I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade.  He hopped down from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

—­Scutter! he cried thickly.

He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen’s upper pocket, said: 

—­Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a dirty crumpled handkerchief.  Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.  Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said: 

—­The bard’s noserag!  A new art colour for our Irish poets:  snotgreen.  You can almost taste it, can’t you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.

—­God! he said quietly.  Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it:  a great sweet mother?  The snotgreen sea.  The scrotumtightening sea.  EPI OINOPA Ponton.  Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks!  I must teach you.  You must read them in the original.  THALATTA!  THALATTA!  She is our great sweet mother.  Come and look.

Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet.  Leaning on it he looked down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of Kingstown.