ZOE: Mount of the moon. You’ll meet with a… (She peers at his hands abruptly) I won’t tell you what’s not good for you. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM: (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm) More harm than good. Here. Read mine.
BELLA: Show. (She turns up bloom’s hand) I thought so. Knobby knuckles for the women.
ZOE: (Peering at bloom’s palm) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money.
BLOOM: Wrong.
ZOE: (Quickly) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That wrong?
(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks.)
BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.
(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off)
BLOOM: (Points to his hand) That weal there is an accident. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen.
ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. (He winces) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)
FLORRY: What?
(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)
THE BOOTS: (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers) Haw haw have you the horn?
(Bronze by gold they whisper.)
ZOE: (To Florry) Whisper.
(They whisper again)
(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman’s cap and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan’s coat shoulder.)
LENEHAN: Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims?
BOYLAN: (Seated, smiles) Plucking a turkey.
LENEHAN: A good night’s work.
BOYLAN: (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks) Blazes Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger) Smell that.
LENEHAN: (Smells gleefully) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
ZOE AND FLORRY: (Laugh together) Ha ha ha ha.
BOYLAN: (Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear) Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet?
BLOOM: (In flunkey’s prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig) I’m afraid not, sir. The last articles…
BOYLAN: (Tosses him sixpence) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. (He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom’s antlered head) Show me in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand?
BLOOM: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing out of the water) Raoul darling, come and dry me. I’m in my pelt. Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.
BOYLAN: (A merry twinkle in his eye) Topping!
BELLA: What? What is it?
(Zoe whispers to her.)
MARION: Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I’ll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt.
BOYLAN: (clasps himself) Here, I can’t hold this little lot much longer. (he strides off on stiff cavalry legs)
BELLA: (Laughing) Ho ho ho ho.
BOYLAN: (To Bloom, over his shoulder) You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
