He spoke roughly in order to belie his air of gentility for his entry had been followed by a pause of talk.  His face was heated.  To appear natural he pushed his cap back on his head and planted his elbows on the table.  The mechanic and the two work-girls examined him point by point before resuming their conversation in a subdued voice.  The girl brought him a plate of grocer’s hot peas, seasoned with pepper and vinegar, a fork and his ginger beer.  He ate his food greedily and found it so good that he made a note of the shop mentally.  When he had eaten all the peas he sipped his ginger beer and sat for some time thinking of Corley’s adventure.  In his imagination he beheld the pair of lovers walking along some dark road; he heard Corley’s voice in deep energetic gallantries and saw again the leer of the young woman’s mouth.  This vision made him feel keenly his own poverty of purse and spirit.  He was tired of knocking about, of pulling the devil by the tail, of shifts and intrigues.  He would be thirty-one in November.  Would he never get a good job?  Would he never have a home of his own?  He thought how pleasant it would be to have a warm fire to sit by and a good dinner to sit down to.  He had walked the streets long enough with friends and with girls.  He knew what those friends were worth:  he knew the girls too.  Experience had embittered his heart against the world.  But all hope had not left him.  He felt better after having eaten than he had felt before, less weary of his life, less vanquished in spirit.  He might yet be able to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good simple-minded girl with a little of the ready.

He paid twopence halfpenny to the slatternly girl and went out of the shop to begin his wandering again.  He went into Capel Street and walked along towards the City Hall.  Then he turned into Dame Street.  At the corner of George’s Street he met two friends of his and stopped to converse with them.  He was glad that he could rest from all his walking.  His friends asked him had he seen Corley and what was the latest.  He replied that he had spent the day with Corley.  His friends talked very little.  They looked vacantly after some figures in the crowd and sometimes made a critical remark.  One said that he had seen Mac an hour before in Westmoreland Street.  At this Lenehan said that he had been with Mac the night before in Egan’s.  The young man who had seen Mac in Westmoreland Street asked was it true that Mac had won a bit over a billiard match.  Lenehan did not know:  he said that Holohan had stood them drinks in Egan’s.