fratricide, the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him. And in the porches of mine ear did pour. By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other story, beast with two backs? —What was that? the professor asked. ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM —He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O'Molloy said, of Roman justice as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And he cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican. —Ha. —A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence! Pause. J. J. O'Molloy took out his cigarettecase. False lull. Something quite ordinary. Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar. I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives. A POLISHED PERIOD J. J. O'Molloy resumed, moulding his words: —He said of it: that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and of prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live, deserves to live. His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall. —Fine! Myles Crawford said at once. —The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said. —You like it? J. J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He took a cigarette from the case. J. J. O'Molloy offered his case to Myles Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his trophy, saying: —Muchibus thankibus. A MAN OF HIGH MORALE —Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. J. O'Molloy said to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal hush poets: A. E. the mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the morning to ask him about planes of consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have been pulling A. E.'s leg. He is a man of the very highest morale, Magennis. Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say about me? Don't ask