Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the avenue
passed and number ten with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking pace.
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled
rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the
doorframes.
— What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
— Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.
— That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died out.
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers.
Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother road
past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning,
a wide hat.
— There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
— Who is that?
— Your son and heir.
— Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over, across.
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back
to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell
back, saying :
— Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates!
— No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
— Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa’s little lump of dung,
the wise child that knows her own father.
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the bottle-
works. Dodder bridge.
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls the
firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in Stamer
street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady’s two hats
pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on him
now : that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it
with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent profit.
— He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is
a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all