--Good day to you.

--Lovely weather, sir.

--'Tis all that.

Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the county
Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold,
they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then thin of the
competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without
passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three
and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On
the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town
travellers. Square it you with the boss and we'll split the job, see?

How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels
of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint
Joseph's National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps
memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee
doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At their
joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom.

He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages,
polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened in
his mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links, packed
with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm
breath of cooked spicy pigs' blood.

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He stood
by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the
items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a pound and a
half of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. Woods his
name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New blood. No followers
allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She
does whack it, by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each whack.

The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with
blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer.

He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm at
Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter
sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it,
blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interesting: read it
nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A
young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, the beasts lowing
in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the breeders in
hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm on a
ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled switches in their
hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his senses and his
will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt swinging, whack by
whack by whack.

The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime
sausages and made a red grimace.

--Now, my miss, he said.

She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.

--Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you,
please?

Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went
slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the
morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood
outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed
down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails
too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of
disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For another: a
constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles lane. They like them sizeable.
Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I'm lost in the wood.

--Threepence, please.

His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.
Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them on
the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc
by disc, into the till.

--Thank you, sir. Another time.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze
after an instant. No: better not: another time.

--Good morning, he said, moving away.

--Good morning, sir.

No sign. Gone. What matter?

He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim:
planters' company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish government
and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and
construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You
pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives,
oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial
irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name entered
for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten down and the
balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.


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