– Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.

He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:

– Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?

Then he said to Haines:

– The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.

– All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey trickle over a slice of the loaf.

Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:

– I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.

Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience. Yet here’s a spot.

– That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol of Irish art is deuced good.

Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen’s foot under the table and said with warmth of tone:

– Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.

– Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just thinking of it when that poor old creature came in.

– Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked.

Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of the hammock, said:

– I don’t know, I’m sure.

He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and said with coarse vigour:

– You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?

– Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the milkwoman or from him. It’s a toss up, I think.

– I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.

– I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.

Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen’s arm.

– From me, Kinch, he said.

In a suddenly changed tone he added:

– To tell you the God’s truth I think you’re right. Damn all else they are good for. Why don’t you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us get out of the kip.