Page 1040 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

talk of the town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a
fine piece of original verse of 910 distinctive merit on the
topic for the Irish Times), breakers running over her and
crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion petrified

with horror. Then someone said something about the case
of the s. s. Lady Cairns of Swansea run into by the Mona
which was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather
and lost with all hands on deck. No aid was given. Her
master, the Mona’s, said he was afraid his collision
bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it appears, in
her hold.
At this stage an incident happened. It having become
necessary for him to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his
seat.
—Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his
neighbour who was just gently dropping off into a
peaceful doze.
He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a
gait to the door, stepped heavily down the one step there
was out of the shelter and bore due left. While he was in
the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who noticed
when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably
ship’s rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private
consumption of his burning interior, saw him produce a

1039 of 1305