Most people considered Lenehan a leech, but in spite of this reputation, his adroitness and eloquence had always prevented his friends from forming any general policy against him. He had a brave manner of coming up to a party of them in a bar and of holding himself nimbly at the borders of the company until he was included in a round. He was a sporting vagrant armed with a vast stock of stories, limericks, and riddles. He was insensitive to all kinds of discourtesy. No one knew how he achieved the stern task of living, but his name was vaguely associated with racing tissues.

`And where did you pick her up, Corley?' he asked.

Corley ran his tongue swiftly along his upper lip.

`One night, man,' he said, `I was going along Dame Street and I spotted a fine tart under Waterhouse's clock, and said good night, you know. So we went for a walk round by the canal, and she told me she was a slavey in a house in Baggot Street. I put my arm round her and squeezed her a bit that night. Then next Sunday, man, I met her by appointment. We went out to Donnybrook and I brought her into a field there. She told me she used to go with a dairyman... It was fine, man. Cigarettes every night she'd bring me, and paying the tram out and back. And one night she brought me two bloody fine cigars — O, the real cheese, you known that the old fellow used to smoke... I was afraid, man, she'd get in the family way. But she's up to the dodge.'

`Maybe she thinks you'll marry her,' said Lenehan.

`I told her I was out of a job,' said Corley. `I told her I was in Pim's. She doesn't know my name. I was too hairy to tell her that. But she thinks I'm a bit of class, you know.'

Lenehan laughed again, noiselessly.

`Of all the good ones ever I heard,' he said, `that emphatically takes the biscuit.'

Corley's stride acknowledged the compliment. The swing of his burly body made his friend execute a few light skips from the path to the roadway and back again.