Part 105

A heavy fume gushed in answer.

—Peasoup, Maggy said.

—Where did you get it? Katey asked.

—Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.

The lacquey rang his bell.

—Barang!

Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:

—Give us it here.

Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her mouth random crumbs:

—A good job we have that much. Where’s Dilly?

—Gone to meet father, Maggy said.

Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:

—Our father who art not in heaven.

Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey’s bowl, exclaimed:

—Boody! For shame!

A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between the Customhouse old dock and George’s quay.

* * *

The blond girl in Thornton’s bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a small jar.

—Put these in first, will you? he said.

—Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.

—That’ll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.

She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe shamefaced peaches.

Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red tomatoes, sniffing smells.

H. E. L. Y.’S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, plodding towards their goal.

He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from his fob and held it at its chain’s length.

—Can you send them by tram? Now?

A darkbacked figure under Merchants’ arch scanned books on the hawker’s cart.

—Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?