out there for nothing. I don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father’s house?
―To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.
―I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned. Today, in fact, or, to be strictly accurate, on yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of conversation that he had moved.
―I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. Why?
―A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great pride, quite legitimately, out of you. You could go back, perhaps, he hazarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion, were patently trying, as if the whole bally station belonged to them, to give Stephen the slip in the confusion.