Page 238 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

community emerged from the gust-blown vestments, the
dean of studies, the portly florid bursar with his cap of grey
hair, the president, the little priest with feathery hair who
wrote devout verses, the squat peasant form of the professor
of economics, the tall form of the young professor of men-
tal science discussing on the landing a case of conscience
with his class like a giraffe cropping high leafage among a
herd of antelopes, the grave troubled prefect of the sodal-
ity, the plump round-headed professor of Italian with his
rogue’s eyes. They came ambling and stumbling, tumbling
and capering, kilting their gowns for leap frog, holding one
another back, shaken with deep false laughter, smacking
one another behind and laughing at their rude malice, call-
ing to one another by familiar nicknames, protesting with
sudden dignity at some rough usage, whispering two and
two behind their hands.
The professor had gone to the glass cases on the side wall,
from a shelf of which he took down a set of coils, blew away
the dust from many points and, bearing it carefully to the
table, held a finger on it while he proceeded with his lecture.
He explained that the wires in modern coils were of a com-
pound called platinoid lately discovered by F. W. Martino.
He spoke clearly the initials and surname of the discov-
erer. Moynihan whispered from behind:
—Good old Fresh Water Martin!
—Ask him, Stephen whispered back with weary humour,
if he wants a subject for electrocution. He can have me.
Moynihan, seeing the professor bend over the coils, rose
in his bench and, clacking noiselessly the fingers of his right

238 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man