Chapter 16

and bore due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings, Mr Bloom, who noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship’s rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it, or unscrew, and, applying its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manœuvre after the counterattraction in the shape of a female, who, however, had disappeared to all intents and purposes, could, by straining, just perceive him, when duly refreshed, by his rum puncheon exploit, gazing up at the piers and girders of the Loop Line, rather out of his depth, as of course it was all radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but, after a brief space of time during which silence reigned supreme, the sailor, evidently giving it a wide berth, eased himself close at hand, the noise of his bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where it apparently woke a horse of the cabrank.