Ulysses Part 32

--Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.

The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.

Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha.

Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.

--Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.

--Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our Saviour.

Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his heart. In _Martha._

_Co-ome thou lost one, Co-ome thou dear one!_

THE CROZIER AND THE PEN

--His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.

They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.

A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and stepped off posthaste with a word:

_--Freeman!_

Mr Bloom said slowly:

--Well, he is one of our saviours also.

A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he pa.s.sed in through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and pa.s.sage, along the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation?

Thumping. Thumping.

He pushed in the gla.s.s swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards Nannetti's reading closet.

WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST RESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS

Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. This morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in.

HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT

Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy crown.

Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth.

It's the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale news in the official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year one thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina.

Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle Toby's page for tiny tots. Country b.u.mpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P. Mainly all pictures.

Shapely bathers on golden strand. World's biggest balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish than the Irish.

The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if he got paralysed there and no-one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the whole thing. Want a cool head.

--Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.

Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him, they say.

The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the dirty gla.s.s screen.

--Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.

Mr Bloom stood in his way.

--If you want to draw the cas.h.i.+er is just going to lunch, he said, pointing backward with his thumb.

--Did you? Hynes asked.

--Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him.

--Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too.

He hurried on eagerly towards the _Freeman's Journal_.

Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint.

WE SEE THE CANVa.s.sER AT WORK

Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk.

--Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember?

Mr Nannetti considered the cutting awhile and nodded.

--He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.

The foreman moved his pencil towards it.

--But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants two keys at the top.

h.e.l.l of a racket they make. He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.

Maybe he understands what I.

The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.

--Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.

Let him take that in first.

Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: various uses, thousand and one things.