“Come on,” he cried wildly. “I’m goin’ to give everybody here a feed. Come on. Come on every mother’s son in this crowd that’s hungry.” He waved his arm towards the fried-fish and chip shop and headed off towards the door. “Hurrah!” “Long life to ye, me darlin’ son of Erin.” “More power to yer elbow.” “Up the rebels.” Gypo strode in front of the disreputable throng as proud as a king leading his courtiers. They came after him with pattering feet, panting, pushing, snivelling, emitting that variegated murmur of sound that comes from a pack of wild things in a panic, coming from afar, unseen, without a guiding reason. They were the riff-raff and the jetsam of the slums, the most degraded types of those who dwell in the crowded warrens on either bank of the Liffey. But to Gypo they were an audience to acclaim his words and his deeds. “Before long ye’ll see me cock o’ the walk around here,” he thought, as he strode into the shop. “Me an’ Gallagher. Come on, every man jack an’ woman too. Come on.” They packed the little shop to the door. There was an overflow outside. It was warm within after the drizzling rain and the sharp wind outside. The air within the shop became almost immediately full of the vapour of human breath. The low murmur of breathing could be heard distinctly through the hum of whispered conversation. “Hey there, towny,” cried Gypo to the shopkeeper, “chuck us a feed for all hands. I’m payin’ for the lot.” The shopkeeper was an Italian, a dark middle-aged fellow with plaintive eyes. He looked at Gypo and then at the crowd. Curiosity, fear, suspicion and surprise raced across his face. Then he smiled and nodded his head. He said something in a foreign language to the girl who stood behind him and then he began immediately to put steaming portions of potatoes and fish into slips of old newspapers that lay ready to hand. The girl, a red-cheeked young woman with big black eyes, dressed in white, busied herself, pushing to and fro on a long arrangement like a sink, more fish and potatoes that were being fried. A crackling noise came from this frying. A hot, sweet and acrid smell permeated the whole room. The starved wastrels revelled in that smell. They looked towards the frying food with eager mouths and glistening eyes. Their nostrils smelt its heat and its savour greedily. Their faces were all fierce and emaciated. Their bodies were unkempt, crooked, weazened. But just then, the joy of an unexpected banquet had filled even their haggard and stupefied souls with a pleasure that made them laugh and chatter irresponsibly like children. The sorrows and the miseries of life were forgotten in that moment of common rejoicing. And perhaps that joyous mumble of chattering voices, rising through the steam in that slum eating-house, was a beautiful hymn of praise to the spirit of life. And Gypo stood among them like some primeval monster just risen from the slime in which all things had their origin.