MRS BREEN: (Gushingly.) Tremendously teapot! London’s teapot and I’m simply teapot all over me! (She rubs sides with him.) After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.
BLOOM: (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which she surrenders gently.) The witching hour of night. I took the splinter out of this hand, carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby ring.) Là ci darem la mano.
MRS BREEN: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph’s diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.) Voglio e non. You’re hot! You’re scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.
BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the beast. I can never forgive you for that. (His clenched fist at his brow.) Think what it means. All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely.) Woman, it’s breaking me!
(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)
ALF BERGAN: (Points jeering at the sandwichboards.) U. p: up.
MRS BREEN: (To Bloom.) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him the glad eye.) Why didn’t you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.
BLOOM: (Shocked.) Molly’s best friend! Could you?
MRS BREEN: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.) Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?
BLOOM: (Offhandedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without potted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs’ feet. Feel.