miss douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her bust, that all but burst, so high.
-- o! o! jerked lenehan, gasping at each stretch. o!
but easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph.
-- why don't you grow? asked blazes boylan.
shebronze, dealing from her jar thick syrupy liquor for his lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and syrupped with her voice:
-- fine goods in small parcels.
that is to say she. neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe.
-- here's fortune, blazes said.
he pitched a broad coin down. coin rang.
-- hold on, said lenehan, till i...
-- fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale.
-- sceptre will win in a canter, he said.
-- i plunged a bit, said boylan winking and drinking. not on my own, you know. fancy of a friend of mine.
lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss douce's lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled. idolores. the eastern seas.
clock whirred. miss kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave), bearing away teatray. clock clacked.
miss douce took boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. it clanged. clock clacked. fair one of egypt teased and sorted in the till and hummed and handed coins in change. look to the west. a clack. for me.
-- what time is that? asked blazes boylan. four?
o'clock.
lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged blazes boylan's elbowsleeve.
-- let's hear the time, he said.
the bag of goulding, collis, ward led bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald pat attending, a table near the door. be near. at four. has he forgotten? perhaps a trick. not come: whet appetite. i couldn't do. wait, wait. pat, waiter, waited.