Complete Works of James Joyce by Unknown Read Free Book Online

instead of two tusks and that was why he was called Tusker Boyle but some fellows called him Lady Boyle because he was always at his nails, paring them.
    Eileen had long thin cool white hands too because she was a girl. They were like ivory; only soft. That was the meaning of TOWER OF IVORY but protestants could not understand it and made fun of it. One day he had stood beside her looking into the hotel grounds. A waiter was running up a trail of bunting on the flagstaff and a fox terrier was scampering to and fro on the sunny lawn. She had put her hand into his pocket where his hand was and he had felt how cool and thin and soft her hand was. She had said that pockets were funny things to have: and then all of a sudden she had broken away and had run laughing down the sloping curve of the path. Her fair hair had streamed out behind her like gold in the sun. TOWER OF IVORY. HOUSE OF GOLD. By thinking of things you could understand them.
    But why in the square? You went there when you wanted to do something. It was all thick slabs of slate and water trickled all day out of tiny pinholes and there was a queer smell of stale water there. And behind the door of one of the closets there was a drawing in red pencil of a bearded man in a Roman dress with a brick in each hand and underneath was the name of the drawing:
     
    Balbus was building a wall.
     
    Some fellow had drawn it there for a cod. It had a funny face but it was very like a man with a beard. And on the wall of another closet there was written in backhand in beautiful writing:
     
    Julius Caesar wrote The Calico Belly.
     
    Perhaps that was why they were there because it was a place where some fellows wrote things for cod. But all the same it was queer what Athy said and the way he said it. It was not a cod because they had run away. He looked with the others across the playground and began to feel afraid.
    At last Fleming said:
      — And we are all to be punished for what other fellows did?
      — I won’t come back, see if I do, Cecil Thunder said. Three days’ silence in the refectory and sending us up for six and eight every minute.
      — Yes, said Wells. And old Barrett has a new way of twisting the note so that you can’t open it and fold it again to see how many ferulae you are to get. I won’t come back too.
      — Yes, said Cecil Thunder, and the prefect of studies was in second of grammar this morning.
      — Let us get up a rebellion, Fleming said. Will we?
    All the fellows were silent. The air was very silent and you could hear the cricket bats but more slowly than before: pick, pock.
    Wells asked:
      — What is going to be done to them?
      — Simon Moonan and Tusker are going to be flogged, Athy said, and the fellows in the higher line got their choice of flogging or being expelled.
      — And which are they taking? asked the fellow who had spoken first.
      — All are taking expulsion except Corrigan, Athy answered. He’s going to be flogged by Mr Gleeson.
      — I know why, Cecil Thunder said. He is right and the other fellows are wrong because a flogging wears off after a bit but a fellow that has been expelled from college is known all his life on account of it. Besides Gleeson won’t flog him hard.
      — It’s best of his play not to, Fleming said.
      — I wouldn’t like to be Simon Moonan and Tusker Cecil Thunder said. But I don’t believe they will be flogged. Perhaps they will be sent up for twice nine.
      — No, no, said Athy. They’ll both get it on the vital spot. Wells rubbed himself and said in a crying voice:
      — Please, sir, let me off!
    Athy grinned and turned up the sleeves of his jacket, saying:
    It can’t be helped;
It must be done.
So down with your breeches
And out with your bum.
    The fellows laughed; but he felt that they were a little afraid. In the silence of the soft grey air he heard the cricket bats from here and from there: pock. That was a sound to hear but if you were hit then you would feel a