Stephen’s mind drifts to his poetry, and then to some rhyming Italian lines from Dante.
O’Molloy insists that Ireland still has excellent jurists, like
Seymour Bushe, who defended the accused in
the Childs murder case. This case reminds Stephen of the scene in
Hamlet when the king’s ghost explains how he was murdered. O’Molloy strikes a match and lights his cigar. (Thinking in retrospect, Stephen remarks that this action—striking the match—was far more important than it initially seemed.) O’Molloy recites Seymour Bushe’s greatest line from the trial, a convoluted explanation of the ancient laws of evidence, then he asks if Stephen likes the line, but Stephen just blushes and takes a cigarette instead. O’Molloy remarks that he chatted with Professor Magennis about Stephen, who apparently asked a visiting American researcher about Madame Blavatsky’s
theosophists. Stephen wants to ask what Magennis said, but he knows he shouldn’t.