Richie Goulding:  (BAGWEIGHTED, passes the door) Mocking is catch.  Best value in Dub.  Fit for a prince’s.  Liver and kidney.

The fan:  (Tapping) All things end.  Be mine.  Now,

Bloom:  (Undecided) All now?  I should not have parted with my talisman.  Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life.  Every phenomenon has a natural cause.

The fan:  (Points downwards slowly) You may.

Bloom:  (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace) We are observed.

The fan:  (Points downwards quickly) You must.

Bloom:  (With desire, with reluctance) I can make a true black knot. 
Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for
Kellett’s.  Experienced hand.  Every knot says a lot.  Let me.  In courtesy. 
I knelt once before today.  Ah!

(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the
edge of A chair A plump BUSKINED hoof and A full pastern, SILKSOCKED.
Bloom, STIFFLEGGED, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers
draws out and in her laces.)

Bloom:  (Murmurs lovingly) To be a shoefitter in Manfield’s was my love’s young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies.  Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.

The hoof:  Smell my hot goathide.  Feel my royal weight.

Bloom:  (CROSSLACING) Too tight?

The hoof:  If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you.

Bloom:  Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance.  Bad luck.  Hook in wrong tache of her ... person you mentioned.  That night she met ...  Now!

(He knots the lace.  Bella places her foot on the floor.  Bloom raises his head.  Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in MIDBROW.  His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)

Bloom:  (Mumbles) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen, ...

Bello:  (With A hard basilisk stare, in A baritone voice) Hound of dishonour!