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—Do, gentleman! Don’t forget your own girl, sir!
—I have no money, said Stephen.
—Buy them lovely ones, will you, sir? Only a penny.
—Did you hear what I said? asked Stephen, bending to-
wards her. I told you I had no money. I tell you again now.
—Well, sure, you will some day, sir, please God, the girl
answered after an instant.
—Possibly, said Stephen, but I don’t think it likely.
He left her quickly, fearing that her intimacy might turn
to jibing and wishing to be out of the way before she offered
her ware to another, a tourist from England or a student of
Trinity. Grafton Street, along which he walked, prolonged
that moment of discouraged poverty. In the roadway at the
head of the street a slab was set to the memory of Wolfe Tone
and he remembered having been present with his father at
its laying. He remembered with bitterness that scene of taw-
dry tribute. There were four French delegates in a brake and
one, a plump smiling young man, held, wedged on a stick, a
card on which were printed the words: VIVE L’IRLANDE!
But the trees in Stephen’s Green were fragrant of rain
and the rain-sodden earth gave forth its mortal odour, a
faint incense rising upward through the mould from many
hearts. The soul of the gallant venal city which his elders
had told him of had shrunk with time to a faint mortal
odour rising from the earth and he knew that in a moment
when he entered the sombre college he would be conscious
of a corruption other than that of Buck Egan and Burncha-
pel Whaley.
It was too late to go upstairs to the French class. He

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