--It does, Mr Bloom said.

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood
every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of
them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn the
thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead.
That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth,
Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every
fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his
traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in
a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure.

Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.

--Everything went off A1, he said. What?

He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.

--As it should be, Mr Kernan said.

--What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.

Mr Kernan assured him.

--Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

--Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She's his wife.

--O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some time.
he was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen
golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good armful she
was.

He looked behind through the others.

--What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery line?
I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

--Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper.

--In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like
that for? She had plenty of game in her then.

--Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.

John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.

The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among
the grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their
caps.

--John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend.

Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:

--I am come to pay you another visit.

--My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want your
custom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin
Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his back.

--Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?

--I did not, Martin Cunningham said.

They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The
caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke in
a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

--They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy
evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for
Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing
about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the drunks spelt
out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking up at a statue
of Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He
resumed:

--And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, NOT A BLOODY BIT LIKE THE
MAN, says he. THAT'S NOT MULCAHY, says he, WHOEVER DONE IT.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting
the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he walked.

--That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes.

--I know, Hynes said. I know that.



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