Bloom took a roll that he had brought with him from the restaurant on Brenchurch Street, crumbled it to pieces, and threw the pieces to the ducks. The flock at once grew more lively; even the drake lifted his head and opened one eye, but shut it again. He was quite white, and his shut eyelid was also white, so that Bloom had to think of the blank, uncanny marble eyes he had seen in the National Museum one Sunday many years ago. The others snapped among the bits of roll. One of them had got hold of a piece that was too big, so she dipped it into the water time after time in order to soften it and break it. Meanwhile another followed all her motions constantly with watchful eyes, and when at last the bit of roll slipped from the bill of the first, the other was instantly there and got it. There was no conflict; the first contented herself with following in turn and watching for a chance to recover the lost piece. Bloom laughed aloud with delight. Yes, that’s right, he thought; he who has got something must look out for what he has, or someone else will come and take it. He felt it almost as a consolation to see the innocent white creature perform with impunity and entire naturalness an act which in the language of mankind is known as theft, and for which he had had to suffer severely. A speckled duck, enticed by the bits of roll, came swimming out from the shore at the apex of a flock of little ones, gray-brown fellows with hairy fluff and small, black, pearly-bright eyes like rats. Several small girls on the way to school with books in their hands stopped and surveyed them with delight and astonishment. “Look there! are those rats?” “No, can’t you see? They’re birds.” “Only think, they aren’t afraid of the water!” “Those are ducklings,” explained Bloom, adding a didactic tone: “They are formed to go in the water. It’s no more remarkable for them to go in the water than for fish to swim.” “Really!” said the largest girl. And they bounded off on their way with little skips. Bloom recalled a story which he had once read in a school book about an ugly duckling that was transformed into a swan. He sought for an application of this to himself and partly found it in his recent transformation at the barber shop and the photographer’s, but it did not seem to him fully satisfactory, and he muttered to himself as he passed on over the bridge: “Wait, I’ll show them! Just wait.” It was very warm, and when he came to the other side of the bridge where nettles and burdocks were standing, gray with dust, by the edge of the road, he took off his jacket, stuck the crook of his stick through the loop, slung it over his shoulder, and went on out along the Lilyholm Road whistling a cheerful tune.