But John did not care whether Bassanio had recognized Portia in the court scene or not. He left the theatre in an exalted mood in which he had little thought for the realities. Next week he told himself, he would visit the Royal again. He would see two plays on the following Saturday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The bills for the following week's programme were already pasted on the walls of the theatre when he came out, and he risked the loss of his train by stopping to read one of them. Romeo and Juliet was to be performed in the afternoon, and Julius Caesar in the evening.
He hurried down Ann Street and across the Queen's Bridge, and reached the railway station just in time to catch his train; and all the way across the bridge and all the way home in the train, one sentence passed continually through his mind:
...And her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece.
VI
While he ate his supper, he spoke to his mother and his uncles of his intention to open a bookshop.
"I'm going to start a bookshop," he said. "I made up my mind in Belfast to-day!"
"A what?" Mrs. MacDermott demanded.
"A bookshop, ma. I'll have every book you can think of in it!..."
"In the name of God," his mother exclaimed, "who do you think buys books in this place?"
"Plenty of people, ma. Mr. McCaughan!..."