A thin voice from the verge of the ring replied:
— Pip! pip!
Moynihan murmured beside Stephen's ear:
— And what about John Anthony's poor little sister:
Stephen laughed and Moynihan, pleased with the result, murmured again:
— We'll have five bob each way on John Anthony Collins.
— I am waiting for your answer, said MacCann briefly.
— The affair doesn't interest me in the least, said Stephen wearily. You know that well. Why do you make a scene about it?
— Good! said MacCann, smacking his lips. You are a reactionary, then?
— Do you think you impress me, Stephen asked, when you flourish your wooden sword?
— Metaphors! said MacCann bluntly. Come to facts.
Stephen blushed and turned aside. MacCann stood his ground and said with hostile humour:
— Minor poets, I suppose, are above such trivial questions as the question of universal peace.
Cranly raised his head and held the handball between the two students by way of a peace-offering, saying:
— Pax super totum sanguinarium globum.
Stephen, moving away the bystanders, jerked his shoulder angrily in the direction of the Tsar's image, saying:
— Keep your icon. If we must have a Jesus let us have a legitimate Jesus.
— By hell, that's a good one! said the gipsy student to those about him, that's a fine expression. I like that expression immensely.
He gulped down the spittle in his throat as if he were gulping down the phrase and, fumbling at the peak of his tweed cap, turned to Stephen, saying:
— Excuse me, sir, what do you mean by that expression you uttered just now?
Feeling himself jostled by the students near him, he said to them:
— I am curious to know now what he meant by that expression.
He turned again to Stephen and said in a whisper:
— Do you believe in Jesus? I believe in man. Of course, I don't know if you believe in man. I admire you, sir. I admire the mind of man independent of all religions. Is that your opinion about the mind of Jesus?
— Go on, Temple, said the stout ruddy student, returning, as was his wont, to his first idea, that pint is waiting for you.
— He thinks I'm an imbecile, Temple explained to Stephen, because I'm a believer in the power of mind.
Cranly linked his arms into those of Stephen and his admirer and said:
— Nos ad manum ballum jocabimus.
Stephen, in the act of being led away, caught sight of MacCann's flushed blunt-featured face.
— My signature is of no account, he said politely. You are right to go your way. Leave me to go mine.
— Dedalus, said MacCann crisply, I believe you're a good fellow but you have yet to learn the dignity of altruism and the responsibility of the human individual.
A voice said:
— Intellectual crankery is better out of this movement than in it.
Stephen, recognizing the harsh tone of MacAlister's voice did not turn in the direction of the voice. Cranly pushed solemnly through the throng of students, linking Stephen and Temple like a celebrant attended by his ministers on his way to the altar.
Temple bent eagerly across Cranly's breast and said:
— Did you hear MacAlister what he said? That youth is jealous of you. Did you see that? I bet Cranly didn't see that. By hell, I saw that at once.
As they crossed the inner hall, the dean of studies was in the act of escaping from the student with whom he had been conversing. He stood at the foot of the staircase, a foot on the lowest step, his threadbare soutane gathered about him for the ascent with womanish care, nodding his head often and repeating:
— Not a doubt of it, Mr Hackett! Very fine! Not a doubt of it!
In the middle of the hall the prefect of the college sodality was speaking earnestly, in a soft querulous voice, with a boarder. As he spoke he wrinkled a little his freckled brow and bit, between his phrases, at a tiny bone pencil.
— I hope the matric men will all come. The first arts' men are pretty sure. Second arts, too. We must make sure of the newcomers.
Temple bent again across Cranly, as they were passing through the doorway, and said in a swift whisper:
— Do you know that he is a married man? he was a married man before they converted him. He has a wife and children somewhere. By hell, I think that's the queerest notion I ever heard! Eh?
His whisper trailed off into sly cackling laughter. The moment they were through the doorway Cranly seized him rudely by the neck and shook him, saying:
— You flaming floundering fool! I'll take my dying bible there isn't a bigger bloody ape, do you know, than you in the whole flaming bloody world!
Temple wriggled in his grip, laughing still with sly content, while Cranly repeated flatly at every rude shake:
— A flaming flaring bloody idiot!
They crossed the weedy garden together. The president, wrapped in a heavy loose cloak, was coming towards them along one of the walks, reading his office. At the end of the walk he halted before turning and raised his eyes. The students saluted, Temple fumbling as before at the peak of his cap. They walked forward in silence. As they neared the alley Stephen could hear the thuds of the players' hands and the wet smacks of the ball and Davin's voice crying out excitedly at each stroke.
The three students halted round the box on which Davin sat to follow the game. Temple, after a few moments, sidled across to Stephen and said:
— Excuse me, I wanted to ask you, do you believe that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a sincere man?
Stephen laughed outright. Cranly, picking up the broken stave of a cask from the grass at his feet, turned swiftly and said sternly:
— Temple, I declare to the living God if you say another word, do you know, to anybody on any subject, I'll kill you super spottum.
— He was like you, I fancy, said Stephen, an emotional man.
— Blast him, curse him! said Cranly broadly. Don't talk 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 Temple, 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 rightly 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 forward 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. When their faces had flushed with the struggle they drew apart, panting. Stephen bent down towards Davin who, intent on the game, had paid no heed to the talk of the others.
— And how is my little tame goose? he asked. Did he sign, too?
David nodded and said:
— And you, Stevie?
Stephen shook his head.
— You're a terrible man, Stevie, said Davin, taking the short pipe from his mouth, always alone.
— Now that you have signed the petition for universal peace, said Stephen, I suppose you will burn that little copybook I saw in your room.