Page 242 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

—A sugar!
—QUIS EST IN MALO HUMORE, said Stephen, EGO
AUT VOS?
Cranly did not take up the taunt. He brooded sourly on
his judgement and repeated with the same flat force:
—A flaming bloody sugar, that’s what he is!
It was his epitaph for all dead friendships and Stephen
wondered whether it would ever be spoken in the same tone
over his memory. The heavy lumpish phrase sank slowly out
of hearing like a stone through a quagmire. Stephen saw it
sink as he had seen many another, feeling its heaviness de-
press his heart. Cranly’s speech, unlike that of Davin, had
neither rare phrases of Elizabethan English nor quaintly
turned versions of Irish idioms. Its drawl was an echo of
the quays of Dublin given back by a bleak decaying seaport,
its energy an echo of the sacred eloquence of Dublin given
back flatly by a Wicklow pulpit.
The heavy scowl faded from Cranly’s face as MacCann
marched briskly towards them from the other side of the
hall.
—Here you are! said MacCann cheerily.
—Here I am! said Stephen.
—Late as usual. Can you not combine the progressive
tendency with a respect for punctuality?
—That question is out of order, said Stephen. Next busi-
ness.
His smiling eyes were fixed on a silver-wrapped tablet
of milk chocolate which peeped out of the propagandist’s
breast-pocket. A little ring of listeners closed round to hear

242 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man