Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

– What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

– We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There’s a lemon in the locker.

– O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

– That woman is coming up with the milk.

– The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can’t go fumbling at the damned eggs.

He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates, saying:

– In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

Haines sat down to pour out the tea.

– I’m giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don’t you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman’s wheedling voice:

– When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.

– By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:

– So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma’am, says Mrs Cahill, God send you don’t make them in the one pot.

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled on his knife.

– That’s folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his brows: