Page 249 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

to him at all. Sure, you might as well be talking, do you
know, to a flaming chamber-pot as talking to Temple. Go
home, Temple. For God’s sake, go home.
—I don’t care a damn about you, Cranly, answered Tem-
ple, moving out of reach of the uplifted stave and pointing at
Stephen. He’s the only man I see in this institution that has
an individual mind.
—Institution! Individual! cried Cranly. Go home, blast
you, for you’re a hopeless bloody man.
—I’m an emotional man, said Temple. That’s quite right-
ly expressed. And I’m proud that I’m an emotionalist.
He sidled out of the alley, smiling slyly. Cranly watched
him with a blank expressionless face.
—Look at him! he said. Did you ever see such a go-by-
the-wall?
His phrase was greeted by a strange laugh from a student
who lounged against the wall, his peaked cap down on his
eyes. The laugh, pitched in a high key and coming from a
so muscular frame, seemed like the whinny of an elephant.
The student’s body shook all over and, to ease his mirth, he
rubbed both his hands delightedly over his groins.
—Lynch is awake, said Cranly.
Lynch, for answer, straightened himself and thrust for-
ward his chest.
—Lynch puts out his chest, said Stephen, as a criticism
of life.
Lynch smote himself sonorously on the chest and said:
—Who has anything to say about my girth?
Cranly took him at the word and the two began to tussle.

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