than that, I can remember even your greatgrandfather, old John Stephen Dedalus, and a fierce old fireeater he was. Now then! There's a memory for you!

----That's three generations ----four generations, said another of the company. Why, Johnny, said Mr Dedalus. And just finish what you have htere, and we'll have another. Here, Tim or Tom or whatever your name is, give us the same again here. By God, I don't feel more than eighteen myself. There's that son of mine there not half my age and I'm a better man than he is any day of the week.

----Draw it mild now, Dedalus. I think it's time for you to take a back seat, said the gentleman who had spoken before.

----No, by God! asserted Mr Dedalus. I'll sing a tenor song against him or I'll vault a fivebarred gate against him or I'll run with him after the hounds across the country as I did thirty years ago along with the Kerry Boy and the best man for it.

----But he'll beat you here, said the little old man, tapping his forehead and raising his glass to drain it.

----Well, I hope he'll be as good a man as his father. That's all I can say, said Mr Dedalus.

----If he is, he'll do, said the little old man.

----And thanks be to God, Johnny, said Mr Dedalus, that we lived so long and did so little harm.

----But did so much good, Simon, said the little old man gravely. Thanks be to God we lived so long and did so much good.

Stephen watched the three glasses being raised from the counter as his father and his two cronies drank to the memory of their past. An abyss of fortune or of temperament