Wednesday 13 November 2013

armpit. He marched towards the group, striking the flags with the heels of his boots and with the ferrule of his heavy umbrella. Then, raising the umbrella in salute, he said to all:

----Good evening, sirs.

He struck the flags again and tittered while his head trembled with a slight nervous movement. The tall consumptive student and Dixon and O'Keeffe were speaking in Irish and did not answer him. Then, turning to Cranly, he said:

----Good evening, particularly to you.

He moved the umbrella in indication and tittered again. Cranly, who was still chewing the fig, answered with loud movements of his jaws.

----Good? Yes. It is a good evening.

The squat student looked at him seriously and shook his umbrella gently and reprovingly.

----I can see, he said, that you are about to make obvious remarks.

----Um, Cranly answered, holding out what remained of the half chewed fig and jerking it towards the squat student's mouth in sign that he should eat.

The squat student did not eat it but, indulging his special humour, said gravely, still tittering and prodding his phrase with his umbrella:

----Do you intend that?

He broke off, pointed bluntly to the munched pulp of the fig, and said loudly:

----I allude to that.

Um, Cranly said as before.

----Do you intend that now, the squat student said, as ipso facto or, let us say, as so to speak?

Dixon turned aside from his group, saying:

---- Goggins was waiting for you, Glynn. He has gone round to the Adelphi to look for you and Moynihan.

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