Page 251 - ULYSSES
P. 251

Ulysses


                                  O’Molloy offered his case to Myles Crawford. Lenehan lit
                                  their cigarettes as before and took his trophy, saying:
                                     —Muchibus thankibus.


                                         A MAN OF HIGH MORALE


                                     —Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J.
                                  J. O’Molloy said to Stephen. What do you think really of
                                  that hermetic crowd, the opal hush poets: A. E. the
                                  mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a
                                  nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee
                                  interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the
                                  morning to ask him about planes of consciousness.
                                  Magennis thinks you must have been pulling A. E.’s leg.
                                  He is a man of the very highest morale, Magennis.
                                     Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say?
                                  What did he say about me? Don’t ask.
                                     —No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the
                                  cigarettecase aside. Wait a moment. Let me say one thing.
                                  The finest display of oratory I ever heard was a speech
                                  made by John F Taylor at the college historical society. Mr
                                  Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had
                                  spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for
                                  those days), advocating the revival of the Irish tongue.




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