ges.
A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

--The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!

He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily
halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as
he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and
lathered cheeks and neck.

Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.

--My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a
Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself.
We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out
twenty quid?

He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:

--Will he come? The jejune jesuit!

Ceasing, he began to shave with care.

--Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.

--Yes, my love?

--How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.

--God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks
you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money
and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you
have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you
is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

--He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is
his guncase?

--A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?

--I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark
with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a
black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If
he stays on here I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down
from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

--Scutter! he cried thickly.

He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper
pocket, said:

--Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a
dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.
Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:

--The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.
You can almost taste it, can't you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair
oakpale hair stirring s