Mine host bowed again as he made answer:
―What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog’s bacon, a boar’s head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of old Rhenish?
―Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!
―Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare larder, quotha! ’Tis a merry rogue.
So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.
―Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.
―Isn’t that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?
―That’s so, says Martin. Or so they allege.
―Who made those allegations? says Alf.
―I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.
―And after all, says John Wyse, why can’t a jew love his country like the next fellow?
―Why not? says J. J. , when he’s quite sure which country it is.
―Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.
―We don’t want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.
―Who is Junius? says J. J.