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a few minutes and then set to work to finish his
copy. But his head was not clear and his mind
wandered away to the glare and rattle of the
public-house. It was a night for hot punches.
He struggled on with his copy, but when the
clock struck five he had still fourteen pages to
write. Blast it! He couldn t finish it in time. He
longed to execrate aloud, to bring his fist down
on something violently. He was so enraged that
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he wrote Bernard Bernard instead of Bernard
Bodley and had to begin again on a clean sheet.
He felt strong enough to clear out the whole
office singlehanded. His body ached to do some-
thing, to rush out and revel in violence. All the
indignities of his life enraged him.... Could he
ask the cashier privately for an advance? No,
the cashier was no good, no damn good: he
wouldn t give an advance.... He knew where he
would meet the boys: Leonard and O Halloran
and Nosey Flynn. The barometer of his emo-
tional nature was set for a spell of riot.
His imagination had so abstracted him that
his name was called twice before he answered.
Mr. Alleyne and Miss Delacour were stand-
ing outside the counter and all the clerks had
turn round in anticipation of something. The
man got up from his desk. Mr. Alleyne be-
gan a tirade of abuse, saying that two letters
190 Dubliners (Signet Classics)
were missing. The man answered that he knew
nothing about them, that he had made a faith-
ful copy. The tirade continued: it was so bitter
and violent that the man could hardly restrain
his fist from descending upon the head of the
manikin before him:
I know nothing about any other two letters,
he said stupidly.
You know nothing. Of course you know noth-
ing, said Mr. Alleyne. Tell me, he added,
glancing first for approval to the lady beside
him, do you take me for a fool? Do you think
me an utter fool?
The man glanced from the lady s face to the
little egg-shaped head and back again; and, al-
most before he was aware of it, his tongue had
found a felicitous moment:
I don t think, sir, he said, that that s a fair
question to put to me.
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There was a pause in the very breathing of
the clerks. Everyone was astounded (the au-
thor of the witticism no less than his neigh-
bours) and Miss Delacour, who was a stout ami-
able person, began to smile broadly. Mr. Al-
leyne flushed to the hue of a wild rose and his
mouth twitched with a dwarf s passion. He
shook his fist in the man s face till it seemed to
vibrate like the knob of some electric machine:
You impertinent ruffian! You impertinent
ruffian! I ll make short work of you! Wait till
you see! You ll apologise to me for your imper-
tinence or you ll quit the office instanter! You ll
quit this, I m telling you, or you ll apologise to
me!
He stood in a doorway opposite the office
watching to see if the cashier would come out
alone. All the clerks passed out and finally the
cashier came out with the chief clerk. It was no
192 Dubliners (Signet Classics)
use trying to say a word to him when he was
with the chief clerk. The man felt that his po-
sition was bad enough. He had been obliged to
offer an abject apology to Mr. Alleyne for his
impertinence but he knew what a hornet s nest
the office would be for him. He could remember
the way in which Mr. Alleyne had hounded lit-
tle Peake out of the office in order to make room
for his own nephew. He felt savage and thirsty
and revengeful, annoyed with himself and with
everyone else. Mr. Alleyne would never give him
an hour s rest; his life would be a hell to him.
He had made a proper fool of himself this time.
Could he not keep his tongue in his cheek? But
they had never pulled together from the first, he
and Mr. Alleyne, ever since the day Mr. Alleyne
had overheard him mimicking his North of Ire-
land accent to amuse Higgins and Miss Parker:
that had been the beginning of it. He might
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have tried Higgins for the money, but sure Hig-
gins never had anything for himself. A man
with two establishments to keep up, of course
he couldn t....
He felt his great body again aching for the
comfort of the public-house. The fog had begun
to chill him and he wondered could he touch
Pat in O Neill s. He could not touch him for
more than a bob and a bob was no use. Yet
he must get money somewhere or other: he had
spent his last penny for the g.p. and soon it
would be too late for getting money anywhere.
Suddenly, as he was fingering his watch-chain,
he thought of Terry Kelly s pawn-office in Fleet
Street. That was the dart! Why didn t he think
of it sooner?
He went through the narrow alley of Tem-
ple Bar quickly, muttering to himself that they
could all go to hell because he was going to have
194 Dubliners (Signet Classics)
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