A dull scowl appeared on Cranly’s forehead. He stared at the table where Moynihan had bent to write his name on the roll, and then said flatly: —A sugar! —_Quis est in malo humore,_ said Stephen, _ego aut vos?_ Cranly did not take up the taunt. He brooded sourly on his judgement and repeated with the same flat force: —A flaming bloody sugar, that’s what he is! It was his epitaph for all dead friendships and Stephen wondered whether it would ever be spoken in the same tone over his memory. The heavy lumpish phrase sank slowly out of hearing like a stone through a quagmire. Stephen saw it sink as he had seen many another, feeling its heaviness depress his heart. Cranly’s speech, unlike that of Davin, had neither rare phrases of Elizabethan English nor quaintly turned versions of Irish idioms. Its drawl was an echo of the quays of Dublin given back by a bleak decaying seaport, its energy an echo of the sacred eloquence of Dublin given back flatly by a Wicklow pulpit. The heavy scowl faded from Cranly’s face as MacCann marched briskly towards them from the other side of the hall. —Here you are! said MacCann cheerily. —Here I am! said Stephen. —Late as usual. Can you not combine the progressive tendency with a respect for punctuality? —That question is out of order, said Stephen. Next business. His smiling eyes were fixed on a silver-wrapped tablet of milk chocolate which peeped out of the propagandist’s breast-pocket. A little ring of listeners closed round to hear the war of wits. A lean student with olive skin and lank black hair thrust his face between the two, glancing from one to the other at each phrase and seeming to try to catch each flying phrase in his open moist mouth. Cranly took a small grey handball from his pocket and began to examine it closely, turning it over and over. —Next business? said MacCann. Hom! He gave a loud cough of laughter, smiled broadly and tugged twice at the strawcoloured goatee which hung from his blunt chin. —The next business is to sign the testimonial. —Will you pay me anything if I sign? asked Stephen. —I thought you were an idealist, said MacCann. The gipsylike student looked about him and addressed the onlookers in an indistinct bleating voice. —By hell, that’s a queer notion. I consider that notion to be a mercenary notion. His voice faded into silence. No heed was paid to his words. He turned his olive face, equine in expression, towards Stephen, inviting him to speak again. MacCann began to speak with fluent energy of the Tsar’s rescript, of Stead, of general disarmament, arbitration in cases of international disputes, of the signs of the times, of the new humanity and the new gospel of life which would make it the business of the community to secure as cheaply as possible the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number. The gipsy student responded to the close of the period by crying: —Three cheers for universal brotherhood!