—Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr
Garrett Deasy asked me to...
—O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and
mouth disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the
waiter’s face in the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O’Rourke, prince of Breffni.
—Is he a widower? Stephen asked.
—Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor’s horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on
the ramparts of Vienna. Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell,
graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an
Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild
geese. O yes, every time. Don’t you forget that!
—The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O’Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on him.
—And if not? he said.
—I’ll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one
day...