—MacCann is in tiptop form. Ready to shed the last drop. Brand new world. No stimulants and votes for the bitches.—
Stephen smiled at the manner of this confidence and, when Moynihan had passed, turned again to meet Cranly's eyes.
—Perhaps you can tell me—he said—why he pours his soul so freely into my ear. Can you?—
A dull scowl appeared on Cranly's forehead. He stared at the table where Moynihan had bent to write his name on the roll; and then said flatly:
—A sugar!—
—Quis est in malo humore—said Stephen—ego aut vos?—
Cranly did not take up the taunt. He brooded sourly on his judgement and repeated with the same flat force:
—A flaming bloody sugar, that's what he is!—
It was his epitaph for all dead friendships and Stephen wondered whether it would ever be spoken in the same tone over his memory. The heavy lumpish phrase sank slowly out of hearing like a stone through a quagmire. Stephen saw it sink as he had seen many another, feeling its heaviness depress his heart. Cranly's speech, unlike that of Davin, had neither rare phrases of Elizabethan English nor quaintly turned versions of Irish idioms. Its drawl was an echo of the quays of Dublin given back by a bleak decaying seaport, its energy an echo of the sacred eloquence of Dublin given back flatly by a Wicklow pulpit.
The heavy scowl faded from Cranly's face as MacCann marched briskly towards them from the other side of the hall.
—Here you are!—said MacCann cheerily.
[228]
