any general policy against him. He had a brave
manner of coming up to a party of them in a bar and of holding himself
nimbly at the borders of the company until he was included in a round.
He was a sporting vagrant armed with a vast stock of stories, limericks
and riddles. He was insensitive to all kinds of discourtesy. No one
knew how he achieved the stern task of living, but his name was vaguely
associated with racing tissues.

"And where did you pick her up, Corley?" he asked.

Corley ran his tongue swiftly along his upper lip.

"One night, man," he said, "I was going along Dame Street and I spotted
a fine tart under Waterhouse's clock and said good-night, you know. So
we went for a walk round by the canal and she told me she was a slavey
in a house in Baggot Street. I put my arm round her and squeezed her a
bit that night. Then next Sunday, man, I met her by appointment. We vent
out to Donnybrook and I brought her into a field there. She told me she
used to go with a dairyman.... It was fine, man. Cigarettes every night
she'd bring me and paying the tram out and back. And one night she
brought me two bloody fine cigars--O, the real cheese, you know, that
the old fellow used to smoke.... I was afraid, man, she'd get in the
family way. But she's up to the dodge."

"Maybe she thinks you'll marry her," said Lenehan.

"I told her I was out of a job," said Corley. "I told her I was in
Pim's. She doesn't know my name. I was too hairy to tell her that. But
she thinks I'm a bit of class, you know."

Lenehan laughed again, noiselessly.

"Of all the good ones ever I heard," he said, "that emphatically takes
the biscuit."

Corley's stride acknowledged the compliment. The swing of his burly body
made his friend execute a few light skips from the path to the roadway
and back again. Corley was the son of an inspector of police and he had
inherited his father's frame and gut. He walked with his hands by his
sides, holding himself erect and swaying his head from side to side. His
head was large, globular and oily; it sweated in all weathers; and his
large round hat, set upon it sideways, looked like a bulb which had
grown out of another. He always stared straight before him as if he were
on parade and, when he wished to gaze after someone in the street, it
was necessary for him to move his body from the hips. At present he was
about town. Whenever any job was vacant a friend was always ready to
give him the hard word. He w