Page 27 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

—Not very good.
Then he said:
—Can you answer me this one? Why is the county of
Kildare like the leg of a fellow’s breeches?
Stephen thought what could be the answer and then
said:
—I give it up.
—Because there is a thigh in it, he said. Do you see the
joke? Athy is the town in the county Kildare and a thigh is
the other thigh.
—Oh, I see, Stephen said.
—That’s an old riddle, he said.
After a moment he said:
—I say!
—What? asked Stephen.
—You know, he said, you can ask that riddle another
way.
—Can you? said Stephen.
—The same riddle, he said. Do you know the other way
to ask it?
—No, said Stephen.
—Can you not think of the other way? he said.
He looked at Stephen over the bedclothes as he spoke.
Then he lay back on the pillow and said:
—There is another way but I won’t tell you what it is.
Why did he not tell it? His father, who kept the racehors-
es, must be a magistrate too like Saurin’s father and Nasty
Roche’s father. He thought of his own father, of how he sang
songs while his mother played and of how he always gave

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