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Chapter 13

Dolphin’s barn. Are you not happy in your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin’s barn charades in Luke Doyle’s house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the old major partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I an only child. So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip: tear in Henny Doyle’s overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle: cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m a tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I suppose.

Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray for us. And pray for us. And pray for us.

Good idea the repetition. Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us.

Yes, there’s the light in the priest’s house. Their frugal meal.

Remember about the mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is. Two houses they have. Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate.

Ba. Again. Wonder why they come out at night like mice. They’re a mixed breed. Birds are like hopping mice. What

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