Stanley polyp Mulligan stood at the window ledge peering into the shaving mirror. He griped the palm of his hand across the pink scold of his face, a fine specimen of a face, and placed the stropped razor on the windowsill. He looked out the window and ran his fingers through the nettled of his hair. After which he paced, feet crossing, to the water facet and poured himself a glass of tepid tap-water. The cup, resin brown and spidery with cracks, the handle all but missing but for a hook and crock, slid from the gripe of his fingers and fell shattering to the mackintosh floorboards at his he feet. -‘What for the love of gods’ almighty, all this shattering and mottle’-- Mulligan turned facing the boot room door and sighed.–‘The dogs got worms’--said Murphy, his child’s head warm from sleep.–‘Seems, so it does, he’s always got them, worms’--said Mulligan shaved. Mulligan carefully shifted his weight, as he was prone to hallucinations, and added-‘we should put it out of its misery we should’-–‘You mean kill it’- said Murphy. –‘Cut it up into little pieces and feed it to the fish’- Mulligan said. –‘What fish’-Murphy said? –‘We have no fish to speak of, none that I know of- We can’t, surly we can’t kill it’-- -‘Why not’-said Mulligan-‘damn things always getting in the way and the gods almighty stench, enough to turn one off one’s supper’-- Murphy, struggling to free himself from the bed-linen, said-‘Leave it alone, he’s no one’s bother. No bother for you or I or no one’—(This is the other story, the one I have been meaning to tell you).
