Thursday, February 20, 2014

November 1923: Cad level one


Guiltless he was clearly for so once at least he clearely declared himself to be. They tell the story that one fine spring morning some years after the alleged misdemeanour whisst crossing the fair expanse of the park he met a cad with a pipe. The latter accosted him to ask if he could say what it was o'clock that the clock struck. Earwicker halting drew his enamelled hunter and told the cad it was twelve to the minute adding however that the accusation against him had been made as was well known by a creature in human form who was several degrees lower than a snake. In support of his words the honest goliath tapped his chronometer and pointed to overgrown milestone as he said solemnly: I am prepared to stand on the monument any day at this hour before the deity and my fellows that there is no tittle of truth in that purest of fabrications. The cad thanked him and repeated the words that same evening at his fireside where he was smoking reflectively after having eaten some peas and vinegar a dish he much fancied. The next evening but one the cad's wife spoke of the matter after sadality meeting to the Reverend director, a fresh complexioned clergyman and it was he in all haman probability was overheard to repeat the words to a layteacher of natural science during a priestly flutter on the race course of baldoyle <when> the portmanock plate was won by a full length by Captain Blounts fresh colt drummer coxon at even money. It was two coves of the name of Treacle Tom and his own blood and milk brother Frisky Shorty come off the hulks what was out on the bum around for an oofbird game for a jimmyogoblin or a small thick as heard the reverend parson make use of the language which he was having a gurgle off his own along of the bloke in the specs. Now Treacle Tom had been absent from his usual haunts for some time previously (he was in the habit of frequenting common lodging-houses where he slept in a nude state in strange beds) but returning on Baldoyle night he repeated the tale more than once during uneasy slumber and in the hearing of a ballad monger and a drapery executive out of work for the moment and an illstarred streetsinger who had been tossing on his doss in the hope of soon finding ways & means for blowing the napper off himself. when day dawned that busker was up and afoot thrumming his square fiddle and after a visit to a public house the world was the richer for a new halfpenny ballad This on a slip of blue paper headed by a woodcut soon fluttered to the rose of the winds from lane to lattice and from mouth to ear throughout the land of Ireland, and round the land his rann it ran and this is the rann that Hosty made: [FDV]

A cloud of witnesses indeed! Yet all of these are as much now no more as were they not yet or had they then not ever been. Of Hosty, quite a musical genius in a small way, the end is unknown. O'Donnell is said to have enlisted at the time of the Crimean war under the name of Buckley. Peter Cloran, at the suggestion of the Master in Lunacy, became an inmate of an asylum. Treacle Tom passed away painlessly in a state of nature propelled into the great beyond by footblows of his last bedfellows, 3 Norwegian sailors. Shorty disappeared from the surface of the earth so completely as to lead one to suppose that his habitat had become the interior. Then was the reverend, the sodality director that fashionable vice preacher to whom society ladies often became so enthusiastically attached and was a nondescript who sometimes wore a raffle ticket in his hat & was openly guilty of malpractices with his tableknife the cad with a pipe encountered by HCE?

It is a well authenticated fact that the average human face changes its shape with the passing of years. Hence it is no easy matter to identify the individual with already an inclination to baldness who was asked by some boardschool children to tell them the story. It was the Lord's day and the request was put to the party as he [sat smoking] {paused} for a smoke in his pastime of executing empty bottles. One sad circumstance the narrator mentioned which goes at once to the heart of things. He rose to his feet and told of it in
In words a bit duskish he aptly described the scene, the monolith rising stark from the twilight pinebarren, the the bellwether, the fallow doe belling softly her approach and how brightly outed his wallet and gives him a topping cheroot and says he was to suck that one and spend a half hour in Havana. And says he: As sure as eggs is what they are in high quarters my business credit will stand as straight as that monument's fabrication before the hygienic globe of the Taskmaster's eye (and here the reverent sabbath and bottle breaker uncovered himself of his boater cordially inviting the adolescents whom he was wising up to do in like manner).
The scene was never forgotten for later in the same century one of that little band of factferreters, then an ex civil servant retired under the sixtyfive act, rehearsed it to a cousin of the late archdeacon Coppinger in a pullman of the transhibernian with one still sadder circumstance which is a heartskewer if ever was. For when the archdeacon spoke of it by request all, hearing the cousin's description of that fellow-traveller's features could really imagine themselves as listening to the cockshy shooter's evensong evocation of the doomed liberator, his hand extended towards the monumental leadpencil which as the molyvdokondolin was to be his mausoleum while over his exculpatory features the ghost of a resignation unveiled a spectral appealingness similar in origin and effect to a beam of sunshine upon a coffinplate. [FDV]




Guiltless he was clearly for so once at least he clearely declared himself to be.

(didn't we just convict him of exhibitionism? does a single cleare denial effectively erase that?)
(his denials are usually stuttered, so unclear, so presumed guilty)
"clearly... clearely" repetition survives to publication (misspelling doesn't)

FW2: "Guiltless... he was clearly for so once at least he clearly... expressed himself as being"


They tell the story that one fine spring morning some years after the alleged misdemeanour whisst crossing the fair expanse of the park he met a cad with a pipe.

"They" unspecified
"spring" (the exposure took place in summer?)
"years" (does "testimonies" imply a police investigation at the time? was that before he achieved his fame/rank?)
"alleged misdemeanour" self-exposure to nursemaids

supposedly based on a (lost!?) anecdote of Joyce's father meeting "a cad with a bicycle" in Phoenix Park, who had asked him for a match to light his pipe with

"pipe" mildly phallic, but mostly harmless/generic (it will morph into a 'fender' among infinite other things)


Bois de Boulogne 1911

'[Djuna Barnes] was walking with [JAJ] in the Bois de Bologne, when a man brushed by and mumbled something she did not understand. Joyce blanched and trembled. Djuna asked what was the matter. "That man, whom I have never seen before," he said, "said to me as he passed, in Latin, 'You are an abominable writer!'' [cite]
VI.A Circe (July?): "unknown beggar comes to bigtimer in day of triumph to tell of a past betise"
VI.A Penelope (July?) "boydobelong (Bois) : mystery of a handsome cad : (cab)"

FW2: "They tell the story... how one happy-go-gusty Ides-of-April morning... ages and ages after the alleged misdemeanour when the tried friend of all creation... was billowing across the wide expanse of our greatest park... he MET a cad with a pipe." (why these CAPS???)


The latter accosted him to ask if he could say what it was o'clock that the clock struck.

cad accosts HCE
"accosted" already hints at aggression (HCE's paranoia)
"if he could say" timid/superpolite
"o'clock... clock"
"struck" metaphorical here?
in The Bohemian Girl, Florestein is stopped by Devilshoof, who asks the time and then steals his watch

Ellmann p465, pre-1919: 'A Frenchman shouted across the Rhine at a German, 'Filou! Filou!' ('Scoundrel!') The German understood him to say 'Wieviel Uhr? Wieviel Uhr?' ['What time is it?'] He looked at his watch and shouted back obligingly, 'Halber sechse' ['6:30']'

FW2: "The latter... accosted him... to ask could he tell him how much a'clock it was that the clock struck"


Earwicker halting drew his enamelled hunter and told the cad it was twelve to the minute adding however that the accusation against him had been made as was well known by a creature in human form who was several degrees lower than a snake.

"enamelled" (gem) in Berkeley1 since July (maledictive)

enamelled pocketwatches are expensive/fancy

'hunter' pocketwatch (w/ lid w/ spring)
exactly noon
VI.A Eolus (July): "what I'm afraid may be said to me I had better say first
myself"
"creature" wasn't it the nursemaids?!?
VI.B10.61: "several degrees lower than a snake" Daily Mail 8 Dec 1922 'He always seemed several degress lower than a snake'

FW2: "The Earwicker... halted, quick on the draw, and... prodooced from his gunpocket his Jurgensen's shrapnel waterbury... but... told the inquiring kidder... it was twelve of em... adding [...] that whereas the hakusay accusation againstm had been made, what was well known... by a creature in youman form who was... several degrees lower than yore triplehydrad snake."


In support of his words the honest goliath tapped his chronometer and pointed to overgrown milestone as he said solemnly:

"honest" (narrator is taking sides)
Goliath = giant defeated by David (so David = cad)
(when did he become a giant?)
"overgrown milestone" witticism attributed to George IV or Daniel O'Connell
"fair expanse... overgrown milestone"
overgrown by weeds
this is the first of many phallic towers in FW which may be balanced by 'yonic' caves and hollows including the Coombe [fweet-13]

FW2: "In greater support of his word... the flaxen Gygas tapped his chronometrum drumdrum and... pointed... towards his duc de Fer's overgrown milestone... and... averred with solemn emotion's fire:"


I am prepared to stand on the monument any day at this hour before the deity and my fellows that there is no tittle of truth in that purest of fabrications.

"stand on the monument" at the base, or on top via 250ft ladder?


"to stand... that" = to maintain my position that?
"the accusation against him... that purest of fabrications"

FW2: "I am woowoo willing to take my stand, sir, upon the monument... any hygienic day to this hour... before the Great Taskmaster's eye... and in the Presence of the Deity Itself andwell... of all such of said my immediate withdwellers... that there is not one tittle of truth... in that purest of fibfib fabrications."


the Cad's mis/hearing of HCE echoes Bantam Lyons mishearing Bloom (U82)


The cad thanked him and repeated the words that same evening at his fireside where he was smoking reflectively after having eaten some peas and vinegar a dish he much fancied.

smoking his pipe
(what color peas?)
cf Dubliners: "The girl brought him a plate of hot grocer's peas seasoned with pepper and vinegar, a fork and his ginger beer."

FW2: "Gaping Gill... thanked um... and erebusqued... as many of the bigtimer's verbaten words which he could balbly call to memory that same kveldeve... while... he spat in careful convertedness... musefed with his thockits after having supped of... a supreme of excelling peas balled under minnshogue's milk into whitemalt winesour, a proviand the littlebilker hoarsely relished"


The next evening but one the cad's wife spoke of the matter after sadality meeting to the Reverend director, a fresh complexioned clergyman and it was he in all haman probability was overheard to repeat the words to a layteacher of natural science during a priestly flutter on the race course of baldoyle <when> the portmanock plate was won by a full length by Captain Blounts fresh colt drummer coxon at even money.

sad sodality?


'in all human probability' cliche
"layteacher" maybe implies religious school, but not priest (or nun)
(cf Bloom's chemistry teacher Vance?)
"flutter" = small bet, but also fluttering hand gesture
1933 Baldoyle races [silent video]
Portmarnock is 2mi from Baldoyle (no Portmarnock Plate, but many others like Metropolitan Plate)

"baldoyle... portmanock plate... drummer coxon" why no caps?

maybe Captain Charles Blount aka Lord Mountjoy? [c1600]
'The Drummer' was a known horse name
cf Humphrey Coxon

FW2: "Our cad's bit of strife... broke of the matter... the next night nudge one... to her particular reverend, the director... yet... it was this overspoiled priest... who... was overheard... to pianissime a slightly varied version of Crookedrib's confidentials... and... hushly pierce the rubiend aurellam of one Philly Thurnston, a layteacher of rural science... during a priestly flutter... at the hippic runfields of breezy Baldoyle... when the classic Encourage Hackney Plate was captured by two noses... by Captain Chaplain Blount's roe hinny Saint Dalough (Drummer Coxon nondepict third) at breakneck odds"


It was two coves of the name of Treacle Tom and his own blood and milk brother Frisky Shorty come off the hulks what was out on the bum around for an oofbird game for a jimmyogoblin or a small thick as heard the reverend parson make use of the language which he was having a gurgle off his own along of the bloke in the specs.

"coves" maybe from Romani, fellow

George Formby, 1915: 'My grandfather's clock was me mother's peramberlator, Round the park in it we used to ride. There was me and Treacle Tommy, Liza Ann and Justice Hawkins, Screaming Jimmy and the twins all stuck inside' [] full lyrics

blood brother
Eoin MacNeill: Celtic Ireland 55: 'Lugaid Cichech... reared the two sons of Crimthann, Aed and Laegaire, on his breasts. It was new milk he gave from his breast to Laegaire, and blood he gave to Aed.'
T&I5 in August had had "milkless ram"

VI.B10.43: "frisky shorty (tramp)" Irish Times 18 Nov 1922: 'stealing free rides on freight trains with kindred knights of the road known as "Boston Slim" and "Frisky Shorty"'

hulks = prison ships
VI.B3.22: "oofbird" rich person (from Slang oof: money)
Jimmy O'Goblin: a sovereign
thick 'un = sovereign or crown piece
"which" ?= who
gargle = a drink

"bloke in the specs" ?= "layteacher of natural science"

FW2: "'Twas two pisonouse Timcoves... of the name of Treacle Tom... and his own blood and milk brother Frisky Shorty... a tipster come off the hulks... what was out on the bumaround for an oofbird game for a jimmy o'goblin or a small thick un as chanced... to ear wick their own hears the passon... make use of his law language... which he was... having a gurgle off his own along of the butty bloke in the specs."


Now [it was the habit] Treacle Tom had been absent from his usual haunts for some time previously (he was in the habit of frequenting common lodging-houses where he slept in a nude state in strange beds) but returning on Baldoyle night he repeated the tale more than once during uneasy slumber and in the hearing of [a ballad monger] and a drapery executive out of work for the moment and an illstarred streetsinger who had been tossing on his doss in the hope of soon finding ways & means for blowing the napper off himself.

"absent" (any clue where/why?)
VI.A Cyclops "frequenting (crime)"
"slept in a nude state in strange beds" strongly hinting gay sex
"returning" to his usual haunts after absence
"Baldoyle night" ie the night of the same day
"repeated the words... spoke of the matter... was overheard to repeat the words...  he repeated the tale more than once" words → matter → tale
"repeated" (so TT was troubled by the tale somehow?)
talking in sleep is a very improbable way to share a "tale"

(what started as a guilty slip is being embroidered by Dublin gossips into a tragicomedy)

"drapery" was prominently mentioned in Dubliners: "It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children's bootees and umbrellas, and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window saying: Umbrellas Recovered."
in Ulysses, Simon's relative Peter Paul McSwiney might be called a (former) drapery executive
ballad monger → streetsinger ( → busker)
"illstarred" survives 1st-to-last
"doss" = bed (or laziness)

cf? VI.A Sisters "she tossed on the couch of separation and her eyes were blackened by the punch of sleeplessness"

"ways & means" old political cliche
"napper" = head (also a name, eg Napper Tandy)

FW2: "This Treacle Tom... had been absent from his usual wild and woolly haunts... for some time previous to that (he was, in fact, in the habit of frequenting common lodginghouses where he slept in a nude state... in strange men's cots) but on racenight... he... resnored... the substance of the tale... during uneasy slumber in their hearings of a small and stonybroke cashdraper's ex-executive, Peter Cloran (discharged), O'Mara, an ex-private secretary of no fixed abode... and Hosty (no slouch of a name), an illstarred beachbusker who... had been towhead tossing on his shakedown, devising ways and manners of means of... getting a hold of some chap's parabellum in the hope of taking a wing sociable and lighting upon a sidewheel dive... where he could throw true and go and blow the sibicidal napper off himself"


when day dawned that busker was up and afoot thrumming his square fiddle and after a visit to a public house the world was the richer for a new halfpenny ballad

VI.B3.106: "busker (beach & town)"

"thrumming" ♬?
square fiddle

'the world is the richer' cliche
1904 ½ p 2014 25¢

FW2: "the bustling tweeny dawn-of-all-works... had not been many jiffies furbishing potlids... when... the rejuvenated busker... and his broadawake bedroom suite... were up and ashuffle... to the thrummings of a crewth fiddle... and, after... a prolonged visit to a house of call... the rhymers' world was with reason the richer for a wouldbe ballad"


This on a slip of blue paper headed by a woodcut soon fluttered to the rose of the winds

broadside ballad
compass rose

FW2: "This... on to a slip of blancovide and headed by an excessively rough and red woodcut... soon fluttered... to the rose of the winds"



from lane to lattice and from mouth to ear throughout the land of Ireland, and round the land his rann it ran and this is the rann that Hosty made:

lane/lattice = outside/inside? street/yard-house-window-fence
mouth/ear = outside/inside??

a "rann" is a very specific form of Irish poem
VI.B3.88: "rann" Fitzpatrick: Ireland and the Making of Britain 164: 'Crimthann... gained victories and extended his sway over Alba, Britain and Gaul, as the Shanachie tells us in the following rann: "Crimthann, son of Fidach, ruled The Alban and the Irish lands, Beyond the clear blue seas he quelled The British and the Gallic might"'

"Hosty" is a surname in Galway and Mayo
Latin hostis: stranger, enemy
he's been described as a ballad monger, streetsinger, or busker, which doesn't imply writing his own songs


FW2: "from green archway to gold lattice and from black hand to pink ear... through the five pussyfours of the united states of Scotia Picta...
And around the lann the rann it rann and this is the rann that Hosty made."


A cloud of witnesses indeed! Yet all of these are as much now no more as were they not yet or had they then not ever been.

Hebrews 12:1 'having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head'
U-14: "I am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human breast."

Apocrypha: Sirach 44:9: 'And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born'

FW2: "Therewith was released... a poisoning volume of cloud barrage indeed! Yet all they who heard or redelivered are now with that family... as much no more as be they not yet now or had they then notever been."


Of Hosty, quite a musical genius in a small way, the end is unknown. O'Donnell is said to have enlisted at the time of the Crimean war under the name of Buckley.

October 1853–February 1856
Buckley [bio]

FW2: "Of... poor Osti-Fosti, described as quite a musical genius in a small way... no one end is known... His husband, poor old A'Hara (Okaroff?)... accepted the (Zassnoch!) ardree's shilling at the conclusion of the Crimean War and... enlisted in Tyrone's horse... and soldiered a bit... under the assumed name of Blanco Fusilovna Bucklovitch"


Peter Cloran, at the suggestion of the Master in Lunacy, became an inmate of an asylum. Treacle Tom passed away painlessly in a state of nature propelled into the great beyond by footblows of his last bedfellows, 3 Norwegian sailors.

Thom's Directory of Ireland/Dublin: (of the lunacy department at Four Courts) 'Registrar in Lunacy... Chief Clerk in Lunacy'

VI.B25.149: "passed away ?to the Beyond by means of poison"
state of nature: in theology, natural moral state as opposed to state of grace 

FW2: "Poor old dear Paul Horan... at the suggestion thrown out by the doomster in loquacity... was thrown into a Ridley's for inmates in the northern counties.. Sordid Sam... passed away painlessly... in the state of nature, propelled... into the unwished Beyond by footblows... of his last fishandblood bedscrappers, a Northwegian and his mate of the sheawolving class."


Shorty disappeared from the surface of the earth so completely as to lead one to suppose that his habitat had become the interior.

cf Kevin

FW2: "the decentest dozendest short of a frusker whoever stuck his spickle through his spoke,  disappeared... from the sourface of this earth... so entirely spoorlessly... as to tickle the speculative to all but opine... that the hobo... had transtuled his funster's habitat to its finsterest interrimost."


Then was the reverend, the sodality director that fashionable vice preacher to whom society ladies often became so enthusiastically attached and was a nondescript who sometimes wore a raffle ticket in his hat & was openly guilty of malpractices with his tableknife the cad with a pipe encountered by HCE?

the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is illustrated with a ticket (price tag) attached to his hat

"malpractices with his tableknife" bad tablemanners: holding it wrong, licking it, eating off it

if the cad was the reverend, his wife would have been redundant/ imaginary

FW2: "Again... was the reverend, the sodality director, that eupeptic viceflayer... to whose palpitating pulpit... sinning society sirens... fortunately became so enthusiastically attached and was an objectionable ass who very occasionally cockaded a raffles ticket on his hat... and was semiprivately convicted of malpractices with his hotwashed tableknife... that same snob of the dunhill... encountered by the General on that redletter morning or maynoon jovesday?"



It is a well authenticated fact that the average human face changes its shape with the passing of years.



Hence it is no easy matter to identify the individual with already an inclination to baldness who was asked by some boardschool children to tell them the story.

maybe the cad, maybe the reverend, maybe neither?

in his U-Circe hallucinations Bloom is described by Mulligan as "prematurely bald from selfabuse" in Eumeus, WB Murphy is described as "a trifle prone to baldness" (also Richie Goulding, the waiter Pat in Sirens, Lyster, Aristotle)

Clongowes was Joyce's only experience of boarding school
if they have to walk back to the school by dinnertime, they must be less than an hour away?


U25 "Tell us a story, sir. — Oh, do, sir. A ghoststory."

It was the Lord's day and the request was put to the party as he [sat smoking] {paused} for a smoke in his pastime of executing empty bottles.

"Lord's day" Sunday
smoking = cad with pipe
"executing" shooting, or throwing stones at
no hint where this took place


One sad circumstance the narrator mentioned which goes at once to the heart of things. He rose to his feet and told of it in

(he was breaking bottles, then sitting and smoking, now standing again)


In words a bit duskish he aptly described the scene, the monolith rising stark from the twilight pinebarren, the the bellwether, the fallow doe belling softly her approach and how brightly outed his wallet and gives him a topping cheroot and says he was to suck that one and spend a half hour in Havana.

"twilight" instead of noon

pine barren (North America only?)


bellwether sheep
fallow deer doe
VI.B10.41: "smoke that & spend a ½ hour in Havana"

Havana had a reputation for gay prostitution as early as 1888

(HCE's encounter with the cad is escalating into his sin with the soldiers)


And says he: As sure as eggs is what they are in high quarters my business credit will stand as straight as that monument's fabrication before the hygienic globe of the Taskmaster's eye (and here the reverent sabbath and bottle breaker uncovered himself of his boater cordially inviting the adolescents whom he was wising up to do in like manner).

phrase 'as sure as eggs are eggs'
"high quarters" phrase

12" Hygienic (washable) Globe £1/12/6 (1920)

Milton: 'All is if I have grace to use it so As ever in my great taskmaster's eye.'


The scene was never forgotten for later in the same century one of that little band of factferreters, then an ex civil servant retired under the sixtyfive act, rehearsed it to a cousin of the late archdeacon Coppinger in a pullman of the transhibernian with one still sadder circumstance which is a heartskewer if ever was.

retire at age sixty-five
(so the adolescent from boarding school has grown up and retired, 50+ years, but still in the same century, so before 1850)

"Coppinger" is a good Catholic name but the Catholics hadn't had archdeacons since 1600 (Church of Ireland did)
1st appearance of motif: Archdeacon JFXP Coppinger [fweet-20]
Swift and Dodgson were deacons
('Archdeacon' is a common lastname in Cork; c1700 an Archdeacon even married a Coppinger)

VI.B6.64: "Return to Coppinger"
Trans-Siberian Railway

on train 50yrs later, factferreter and cousin


For when the archdeacon spoke of it by request all, hearing the cousin's description of that fellow-traveller's features could really imagine themselves as listening to the cockshy shooter's evensong evocation of the doomed liberator, his hand extended towards the monumental leadpencil which as the molyvdokondolin was to be his mausoleum while over his exculpatory features the ghost of a resignation unveiled a spectral appealingness similar in origin and effect to a beam of sunshine upon a coffinplate.

"archdeacon... cousin's" so the archdeacon hadn't died yet, and heard and repeated his cousin's version of the factferreter's 50-years-later memory of the cad's memory of HCE

Coppinger himself with requesters (no hint where)

cock shy
"evensong" eg Milton and Dryden, evening or evening prayers


Modern Greek molybdokondylon? supposedly lead pencil from mólubdos, “graphite”
+ condyle = knuckle?? κόνδυλος = tuber/knuckle/fist; kondylom (Swedish for genital wart)
+ mandolin?

Daniel O'Connell said Robert Peel's smile was like 'the silver plate on a coffin'

FW2: "For as often as the Archicadenus... spoke of it by request, all, hearing... the copycus's description of that fellowcommuter's play upon countenants, could simply imagine themselves... listening to the cockshyshooter's evensong evocation of the doomed but always ventriloquent Agitator... his manslayer's gunwielder protended towards that overgrown leadpencil which was soon, monomentally at least, to rise as Molyvdokondylon to, to be, to be his mausoleum... while ollover his exculpatory features... the ghost of resignation diffused a spectral appealingness... similar in origin and akkurat in effect to a beam of sunshine upon a coffinplate."



Saturday, February 15, 2014

November 1923: Cad level two


Guiltless he was clearly for so once at least he clearely with a brave outlander's burr declared himself to be & we know that it is true. They tell the story that one happy-go-blowy April morning some years after the alleged misdemeanour whitst billowing across the fair expanse of the park in the rubberised inverness he met a cad with a pipe. The latter accosted him to ask if he could say what it was o'clock that the clock struck, had he any idea. Earwicker realising on fundamental principles the supreme importance of physical life & being unwishful to be plugged by the sap's bullet sending him to eternity halting quick on the draw produced his shrapnel Waterbury from his gunpocket and hearing above the skirling of sharp Mother East old Fox Goodman working the tenor bell in the speckled church, and told the cad it was punctually twelve adding however that the accusation against him had been made as was well known by a creature in human form who was several degrees lower than a snake. In support of his words the flaxen goliath tapped his chronometer and pointed a Berlin gauntlet to the dukes overgrown milestone as he said solemnly: credit me my friend. I have won straight. Hence my nationwide business. I am prepared to take my stand upon the monument any hygienic day at this hour and to declare upon the open bible before the Great Taskmaster's eye & in the presence of the deity my immediate neighbour and my fellows in every corner on this globe in general & to each living soul acquainted with the British tongue that there is not one tittle of truth in that purest of fabrications. The cad perceiving that he had to do with a clear postpuberal hyperpituitary type, thanked him for the time of day not a little surprised, all the same, that that was all the time it was repeated the words that same evening at his fireside where he spat in museful thought after having eaten some boiled peas with vinegar a plateful he much fancied. The aftertale has it that The next evening but one the cad's wife spoke of the matter after sadality meeting to the Reverend the director, a fresh complexioned clergyman and it was he in all haman probability who, seized of the facts, was overheard by accident-- if indeed it was an accident-- to repeat the words in an undertone to a layteacher of natural science in the middle 40's during a priestly flutter for safe & sane bets on the race course of baldoyle on a date easily capable of remembrance by all turfites when the portmanock plate was captured after a clever getaway by a full length from Bold Boy Cromwell by Captain Blounts fresh colt drummer coxon at short odds. It was 2 coves of the name of Treacle Tom & Frisky Shorty off the hulks what was on the bum for an oofbird good for a jimmygoblin as heard this reverend gent make use of the language which he was having a gurgle on his own along of the bloke in the specs. This Treacle Tom to whom reference has been made had been absent from his usual wild and woolly haunts for some time previously (he was in the habit of frequenting common lodging-houses where he slept in a nude state in strange shakedowns) but returning on Baldoyle night to his house of call at Block Z, Pump Square, the Liberties, he sought his warm bed he repeated the tale more than once during uneasy slumber and in the hearing of a discharged drapery executive Peter Cloran O'Donnell a secretary of no fixed abode who had passed several nights in a doorway and Hosty an illstarred streetsinger who, feeling suicidal, had been tossing on his doss in the hope of soon getting a loan of some chaps' parabellum to go & find some dive somewhere off the main tram line & blow the napper off himself in peace & quietness. He having been trying for over a year to get into Jervis street hospital without having been able to wangle it anyway. O'Donnell & Peter Cloran as an understood thing, slept in the one bunk with hosty and the housewife dawn-of-all-work had not been many hours furbishing potlids, doorbrasses, scholars' applecheeks & horny buttons when the busker and his bedroom suite were up and afoot crosstown thrumming his crewth fiddle and after a visit to a public house not 1,000 miles from Parnell's statue where the trio were joined by another casual & a decent sort who had just pocketed his weekly insult where all had stimulants in the shape of gee and gees stood by the decent sort at the decent sort's expense & came out of the licensed premises wiping their mouth on their sleeves the world was the richer for a new halfpenny ballad first sung under the shadow of the monument of the dead legislator to an overflow meeting fully filling the visional area representative of every section of the Irish people ranging from slips of boys with pocketed hands, ladychairs, a few old souls obviously under the spell of liquor & emergency men in search of an honest crust to busy professional gentlemen. Word went round and etc. This on a slip of blue paper headed by a woodcut soon fluttered on highway & byway to the rose of the winds from lane to lattice and from mouth to ear, throughout the 5 corners of the land of Ireland, and round the land his rann it ran and this is the rann that Hosty made: [FDV]
A cloud of witnesses indeed! Yet all of these are as much no more as were they now not yet or had they then not ever been. Of Hosty, quite a musical genius in a small way, the end is unknown. O'Donnell, somewhat depressed by things, is said to have enlisted at the time of the Crimean war under the name of Buckley. Peter Cloran, at the suggestion of the Master in Lunacy, became an inmate of an asylum. Treacle Tom passed away painlessly in a state of nature propelled into the great beyond by footblows of his last bedfellows, 3 Norwegian of the seafaring class.Shorty disappeared from the surface of the earth so completely as to lead one to suppose that it had come to pass that he (who possessed at times a large amount of the humorous) his habitat had become the interior. Then was the reverend, the sodality director that fashionable vice preacher to whom sinning society beauties (vide the daily press) often became so enthusiastically attached and was an objectionable ass who sometimes wore a nondescript raffle ticket in his hat & was openly guilty of malpractices with his tableknife the cad with a pipe encountered by HCE?



Monday, February 10, 2014

November 1923: Cad level three


     Guiltless he was clearly for so once at least he clearly and with still a trace of his erstwhile burr declared himself to be and we know that it is true. They tell the story that one happy-go-gusty April morning long after the alleged misdemeanour when billowing across the wide expanse of our great park in his rubberised inverness he met a cad with a pipe. The latter hardily accosted him to ask could he say how much o'clock it was that the clock struck had he any idea. Earwicker, realising on fundamental principles the supreme importance of physical life and unwishful of being sent into eternity plugged by the sap's bullet, halted and, quick on the draw, produced from his gunpocket his shrapnel-Waterbury and, at the same instant hearing above the skirling of harsh Mother East old Fox Goodman working the tenor bell in the speckled church, told the cad it was twelve punctual, adding however, as he bent to give weight to the utterance that the accusation against him had been made, as was well known in high quarters, by a creature in human form who was several degrees lower than a snake. In greater support of his words the flaxen giant tapped his chronometer and, now standing erect with one Berlin gauntlet pointed towards the duke's overgrown milestone solemnly averred: Credit me, my friend. I have won straight. Hence my nationwide business and I am prepared to take my stand upon the monument any hygienic day at this hour and to declare upon the open bible before the Great Taskmaster's eye and in the presence of the deity and my immediate neighbours and every living soul in every corner of this globe in general acquainted with the British tongue that there is not one tittle of truth in that purest of fabrications. The cad, perceiving that he had to do with a plainly postpuberal hyperpituitary type, thanked for the time of day, not a little taken aback all the same that that was all the time it was, and repeated as many of the words as he could call to mind that same evening at his fireside where he spat in museful thought after having eaten very excellent peas boiled with malt vinegar, a plateful he frankly relished in raw weather. The cad's wife (as the aftertale has it) spoke of the matter the next night but one after sodality meeting to the reverend, the director, a freshcomplexioned clergyman, yet it was he in all human probability who, when seized of the facts, was overheard by accident-- if indeed, it was an accident-- repeating a slightly different version of the words to a layteacher of organic chemistry in the middle forties during a priestly flutter for safe and sane bets at the racecourse of Baldoyle on a date easily capable of remembrance by good turfites when the Portmarnock plate was captured by two lengths from Bold Boy Cromwell after a clever getaway by Captain Blount's fresh colt Drummer Coxon at short odds. It was two coves of the name of Treacle Tom and his own blood and milk brother Frisky Shorty come off the hulks what was out on the bum around for an oofbird game for a jimmyogoblin or a small thick as heard the reverend parson make use of the language which he was having a gurgle off his own along of the bloke in the specs. This Treacle Tom, to whom reference has just been made, had been absent from his usual wild and woolly haunts for some time previous to that (he was, in fact, in the habit of frequenting common lodginghouses where he slept in a nude state in strange men's bunks) but revisiting on racenight his house of call at Block W, Pump square, the Liberties, he repeated the tale in parts more than once during uneasy slumber in the joint hearing of a discharged drapery executive Peter Cloran, O'Donnell, a secretary of no fixed abode who had passed several nights in a doorway and Hosty, an illstarred busker who, feeling suicidal, had been tossing on his shakedown devising ways and means of somehow getting ahold of some chap's parabellum in the hope of lighting upon a dive somewhere off the main tramline where he could go and blow the napper off himself in peace and quietness, he having been trying all he knew for over eighteen months to get into Jervis street hospital without having been able to wangle it anyway. O'Donnell and Peter Cloran, as an understood thing, slept in the one bed with Hosty, and the housewife dawn-of-all-work had not been very many hours furbishing potlids, doorbrasses, scholars' applecheeks and livery metals when the rejuvenated busker and his bedroom suite were up and afoot crosstown to the thrumming of a crewth fiddle and, after a visit to a publichouse not a thousand leagues from the site of Parnell's statue where, the tale runs on, the trio were shortly joined by a further casual and a decent sort who had just pocketed the weekly insult and all had stimulants in the shape of five gee and gees stood by the decent sort after which all came out of the licensed premises wiping their mouth on their sleeve and the world was the richer for a new halfpenny ballad which was first sung under the shadow of the monument of the dead legislator to an overflow meeting fully filling the visional area and easily representative of all sections and cross sections of the Irish people ranging from slips of boys with pocketed hands and corporation bucket emergency men in search of an honest crust to busy professional gentlemen, massgoing ladies in their chairs and a few old souls obviously under the spell of liquor. Word went round and the ballad printed on a strip of blue paper headed by a rough woodcut soon fluttered on highway and byway to the rose of the winds from lane to lattice and from mouth to ear throughout the five corners of the land of Ireland. And around the land this rann it ran and this is the ran that Hosty made: [...]

    A cloud of witnesses indeed! Yet all of these are now as much no more as were they not yet now or had they then not ever been. Of Hosty, quite a musical genius in a small way, the end is unknown. O'Donnell, somewhat depressed by things, is said to have accepted the (Saxon) king's shilling on the outbreak of the Crimean war, enlisting under the name of Blanco Buckley. Peter Cloran, at the suggestion of the master in lunacy, became an inmate of an asylum. Treacle Tom passed away painlessly one hallow e'en in a state of nature, propelled into the great beyond by footblows of his last bedfellows, three Norwegians of the seafaring class. Shorty disappeared from the surface of the earth so entirely as to lead the speculative to opine that it came to pass that he (who possessed a large amount of the humorous) had removed his habitat to the interior. Again, was the reverend, the sodality director that fashionable vice preacher to whom sinning society sirens (vide the daily press) at times became so enthusiastically attached and was an objectionable ass who very occasionally wore a raffle ticket in his hat and was openly convicted of malpractices with his tableknife that same cad with a pipe encountered by Humphrey Chimpden?

    It is a well authenticated fact that the average human face changes its shape with the passing of years. Hence it is no easy matter to identify the individual with already an inclination to baldness who was asked by some boardschool children to tell them the story. It was the Lord's day and the request was put to the party as he paused for a smoke in his pastime of executing empty bottles. One sad circumstance the narrator mentioned which goes at once to the heart of things. He rose to his feet and told of it in the simplest of language to a group of little caremakers of the great mythical figure in his widewinged hat, the four-in-hand cravat and the gauntlet upon the hand which had struck down Destrelle. In words a bit duskish he aptly described the scene, the monolith rising stark from the twilit pinebarren, the fallow doe belling softly her approach and how brightly he outed his wallet and gives him a topping cheroot and says he was to suck that one and spend a half hour in Havana. And says he: As sure as eggs is what they are in high quarters my business credit will stand as straight as that monument's fabrication before the hygienic globe (and here the reverent sabbath and bottle breaker uncovered himself of his boater cordially inviting the adolescents whom he was wising up to do in like manner) globe of the great Pastmaster's eye. The scene was never forgotten for later in the same century one of that little band of factferreters, then an ex civil servant retired under the sixtyfive act, rehearsed it to a cousin of the late archdeacon Coppinger in a pullman of the transhibernian with one still sadder circumstance which is a heartskewer if ever was. For when the archdeacon spoke of it by request all hearing the cousin's description of that fellow-traveller's features could really imagine themselves as listening to the cockshy shooter's evensong evocation of the doomed liberator, his hand protended towards the monumental leadpencil which as the Molyvdokondylon was to be his mausoleum while over his exculpatory features the ghost of a resignation diffused a spectral appealingness similar in origin and in effect to a beam of sunshine upon a coffinplate.

    The data, did we possess them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude, the testifiers too untrustworthily irreperible but certain one thing is, that ere the following winter turned the leaves of the book of nature, the shadow of the huge outlander had stood at the bar of a hundred tribunals, here sentenced before trial with Jedburgh justice, there acquitted against evidence by benefit of clergy. Big, human, erring, forgivable the unforgettable shade looms up behind the varied judgments of those unrecapturable days. Three soldiers of the Coldstream guards were walking in Montgomery Street. One gave an opinion in which all concurred. It was the first woman, they said. He showed himself a man afterwards. A coming actress (who has been called by one critic a vestpocket Siddons) was interviewed in a beauty parlour and said, while righting her cartwheel hat, she hoped he would get a Christmas pardon because the world had been unkind. Then he has been so truly wonderful, she added. A dustman named Sevenchurches in the employ of Bullwinkle and M'Tigue was asked the question in a hashhouse and replied: We have been discussing this case. All our fellows say that he is a gamey one. A more than usually sober taxidriver said: Earywigger is a pink joint scoundrel in private life but folks say he has parliamentary privilege. A barmaid's view was: It would be a crying shame to jail him in consequence of his health. Brian Linskey, the boy curser, was questioned and gave a snappy comeback when saying: I am for caveman sex, curse it! Them two women ought to be strangled, I say! Miss Ida Wombwell, the seventeen year old revivalist, said concerning the fusiliers incident: That man is a brute-- but a magnificent brute. Sylvia Silence, the girl detective, when told of the different facts in her easy bachelor's flat overlooking Anderson's mews, asked quietly: Have you thought that sheer greatness was his tragedy? But in my view he should pay the full penalty. A sailor, seated on the granite setts of the fishmarket, was encouraged to talk by his fiancée and said: I lay he was to blame about the two slaveys as he had his perfect right but I think there was someone else behind it about the three drummers.

    Can it be that so diversified outrages were planned and partly carried out against a staunch covenanter if it is true those recorded ever took place? The city of refuge whither he had fled to forget in expiating manslaughter, the land in which by the commandment with promise his days apostolic were to be long murmured, would rise against him, do him, poor jink, ghostly upon bodily, as were he made a curse for them, the corruptible lay quick, all saints of incorruption of an holy nation, the common or garden castaway in resurrection of damnation so they convince him of their proper sins. Businessbred to a stiff upper lip he took nothing but good fighting chances. Yet he or his was or were subjected to terror. One tall man humping a suspicious parcel when returning late to the old spot had a barking revolver put to his face by an unknown assailant (masked) against whom he had been jealous. More than that when the waylayer (not a Lucalizodite) mentioning that he had a loaded pistol which left only two alternatives as either he would surely shoot him or, failing of that, bash in his face beyond all recognition, pointedly asked him how he came by the fender he was answered by the aggravated assaulted that that was for him to find out. But how transparently untrue! Six feet one is not tall. Was it supposedly to explode or to force an entrance that the man in a butcher blue blouse from a men's wear store with a bottle of single stout in his possession seized by the town guard in H.C.E.'s very gateway, was in the gateway? How true on first time of hearing his statement that he had had a lot too much to drink and was only falling against the gate yet how lamely proceeds his then explanation that he was merely trying to open the bottle of stout by hammering it against the gate for the boots in the place, Maurice Behan, who hastily threw on a pair of pants and came down in his socks without coat or collar, attracted by the noise of gunplay, said he was safe in bed when he was wakened up out of the land of byelo by hearing hammering emanating from the gate. This battering all over the door and sideposts, he always said, was not in the very remotest like a bottle of stout which would not rouse him out of sleep but far more like the overture to the last day, if anything. Notice a fellow who calls on his skirt. Note his sleek hair so elegant, tableau vivant. He vows her to be his own honeylamb, swears they will be pals, by Sam, and share good times way down west in a happy lovenest when May moon shines but that guy is not so dippy between you and I (not on your life! not in these trousers! not by a large jugful!) for somewhere on the sly this guy has his girl number two and he would like to canoodle her too some part of the time for he is downright fond of his own number one but he is fair mashed on peachy number two so that if he could only canoodle the two all three would be genuinely happy, the two numbers, that is, with their mutual chappy (for he is simply shamming dippy) if they were afloat in a dreamboat, his tippy canoe, his tippy upanddowndippy tiptoptippy canoodle canyou. With this our friends the fender and the bottle at the gate seem on an identical basis, bearing several of the earmarks of a plot for there is in fact no use putting a tooth on a thing of that sort and the amount of that sort of thing which was then going on was simply stupendous.

    Next morning the postman handed in a letter superscribed to Humpty, Pot and gallows king. The coffin, at first sight mistaken for a fender, had been removed from hardware premises, a noted house of the middle east which, as an ordinary everyday transaction, supplied funeral requisites of every description. In the parallel case Laddy Cummings, the conscientious guard and a scripture reader to boot, swore before the proper functionary that the butcher in the blouse, after delivering some carcasses, went and kicked at the door and when challenged about it on his oath by the imputed, said simply: I am on my oath. You did, as I stressed before. You are deeply mistaken, sir, let me then tell you, denied MacPartland (the meat man's name).

    These outrages were thought to have been instigated by either or both of the rushy hollow heroines but one shortly after drank carbolic with all her life before her while her sister-in-love finding while one day doing her chores that she stripped well began to feel her hat too small for her and took to selling her spare time in the haymow and elsewhere. But a little thought ought to allow the facts to fall in and take up their due places. If violence to life, limb and chattels has as often as not been an expression, direct or through a male agency, of offended womanhood has not levy of blackmail from the earliest ages followed in worldlywise a whispered reputation. First, a gateway there was for the suroptimist had bought and enlarged that shack under fair rental of one yearly sheep, value of sixpence, and one small yearly pig, value of eightpence, to grow old and happy in for the remaining years and when everything was got up for the purpose he put a gate on the place and thenabouts the gate was locked purposely by his faithful people to keep him inside in case he felt like sticking out his chest too far and tempting gracious providence. It ought to be always remembered that there was a commercial stopping in the hotel before that and he missed six pounds fifteen and found his overcoat disturbed. The gate business was in fact all threats and abuse and in this sort. Humphrey's unsolicited visitor promised through the gate outside which he was first, that he would break his head for him, next, that he would break the gate over his head the way he would crack a nut with a monkey wrench and, last of all, that he would give him his (Humphrey's) blood to drink. He went on at a great rate abusing him from ten thirty up to one in the afternoon without even a lunch interval. Earwicker, longsuffering, under restraint in the sittingout corner of his conservatory, his thermos flask by his side, compiled a long list (now feared lost) to be kept on file of all the abusive names he was called (informer, old fruit, yellow whigger, wheatears, goldygoat, funnyface, bogside beauty, muddle the plan, mister fatmeat) but did not otherwise respond beyond such sedentarity, though it was as easy as kisshands for him to reach for the hello grip and ring up Crumlin exchange, because as he explained, touching his wounded feelings in the future, the dominican mission was on at the time and he thought it might reform him. The more than considerably unpleasant bullocky before he rang off pegged a few stones all of a size, but possibly seeing the seriousness of what he had not done made him leave down the stones and having sobered up a bit, he left the scene, after exhorting him to come outside so as he could burst him all up and proceeded in the direction of the deaf and dumb institution.

    It may be that with his deepseeing insight (had not wishing been but good time wasted) H.C.E. prayed all that time in silence that his wordwounder might become the first of a distinguished dynasty, his most cherished of all ideas being the formation, as in more favoured climes, of a truly criminal stratum, thereby at last eliminating much general delinquency from all classes and masses.

    The coffin was to come in handy later. This is the how of that. A number of public bodies made him a present of a grave in a fair state of repair which nobody had ever been able to dig much less occupy. This grave he blasted with a landmine and carefully lined the result with bricks and mortar, encouraging the same and other public bodies to present him over and above that with a stone. Coffins, windingsheets, cinerary urns and any kind of funeral bric a brac would naturally follow in the ordinary course.

    The other spring offensive may have come about all quite by accident. From both camps (granted at once for the sake of argument that men on both sides had grand ideas) all conditions were drawn into the conflict, some for lack of proper feeding, others already caught in the act of carving honourable careers for self and family, and, if emaciated, the person garotted may have suggested incarnate whiggery or even the grand old whig himself in the flesh when falsesighted by the wouldbe burglar, a tory of the tories, for there then circulated pretty freely the feeling that in so hibernating Earwicker was secretly feeding on his own fat.

    Kate Strong, a widow, did all the scavenging from good King Charles golden days down but she cleaned only sparingly and her statement was that, there being no macadamized sidewalks in those R.I.C. days barring a footpath which left off where the man was struck, she left, as scavengers will, a filth dump near the dogpond in the park, all over which bootmarks, fingerprints, elbowdints, kneecaves, breechbowls were all successively found of a very involved description. It was on this resurfaced spot evidently that the attacker, though under medium, with truly native pluck tackled him whom he mistook to be somebody else, making use of sacrilegious language to the effect that he would have his life and lay him out at the same time catching hold of a long bar he had and with which he usually broke furniture. They struggled for some considerable time and in the course of it the masked man said to the other: Let me go, Pat. Later on the same man asked: Was six pounds fifteen taken off you by anyone 2 or 3 months ago? There was some further severe mauling and then a wooden affair in the shape of a revolver fell from the intruder who thereupon became friendly and wanted to know whether his chance companion who still had the fender happened to have the change of a ten pound note about him as, if so, he would pay the six pounds odd out of that for what was taken on last July. To this the other then said: Would you be surprised to hear that I honestly have not such a thing as the loose change of a ten pound note about me at the moment but I believe I can see my way to advance you four and sevenpence between hopping and trotting to buy whisky. At the mention of whisky the gunman became calm and remarking, apparently highly pleased: You stunning little southdowner! Goalball I've struck this day, by golly! You have some grit, south downer! he went off with the four and seven and the hurlbat, picked up, while the man who was left with the fender who bore up under it with a number of plumsized bruises on him, reported the occurrence at the watch house in Vicar Street, his face all covered with blood as good proof of his serious character and that he was bleeding from the nose, mouth and two ears while some of his hair had been pulled off his head though other wise his allround health was middling enough.

    Now coming on to the question of unlawfully obtaining a pierced fender and fireguard there crops up like a shot the far more capital point of the political bias of a person who, when mistakenly ambushed, was simply exercising one of the most primary liberties of the subject by walking along a public thoroughfare in broad daylight.

    As if that was not enough for anyone but little headway was made when a countryman, Festy King, who gave an address in Joyce's country in the heart of a wellfamed poteen district, was subsequently brought up on an improperly framed indictment. It was attempted to show that King rubbed some dirt on his face to disguise himself and was at the fair of a Monday with a pig when the animal ate some of the doorpost, King selling it because she ate a lot of the woodwork of her sty in order to pay off arrears of rent. An eyewitness said he remembered the fifth of November which was going to go down in the annals of history and that one thing which particularly struck him was that he saw or heard Pat O'Donnell beat and murder another of the Kings, Simon, between whom bad blood existed but it turned out in crossexamination that where the ambush was laid there was not as much light as would dim a child's altar and to the perplexedly uncondemnatory bench the first King, Festy, declared through his interpreter on his oath and before God and all their honours that he did not fire a stone either before or after he was born down to that day and this he supplemented by postasserting what he would impart that he might never ask to see sight or light of this world or the next world or any other world if ever he up with a hand to take or throw the sign of a stone at man, sheep or salvation army either before or after being baptised down to that holy and blessed hour. [cite] [FDV]