Page 876 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this
summer.
KITTY: No!
ZOE: (Explodes in laughter) Great unjust God!

FLORRY: (Offended) Well, it was in the papers about
Antichrist. O, my foot’s tickling.
(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past,
yelling.)
THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the
rockinghorse races. Sea serpent in the royal canal. Safe
arrival of Antichrist.
(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)
STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time.
(Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open
on his spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s
wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured
bills. Aloft over his shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the
hook of which the sodden huddled mass of his only son, saved
from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its breeches. A
hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked,
hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper
nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
ALL: What?

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