Buck Mulligan has arrived for this last rally and salutes with ‘amen’ from the doorway. Stephen knows Mulligan will have read his telegram and wonders if he is now his enemy. Mulligan is masked behind his clever mocking and the discussion extends to the Holy Ghost. Mr Best gives Mulligan a message from Haines that he will meet him later. John Eglington identifies Haines as a fellow countryman of Shakespeare and jokes that now Hamlet is being played by a woman that someone will surely prove that he was also an Irishman. Mr Best contributes a little theory about the sonnets being written by Willie Hughes with poetic references to hue and colour. Stephen thinks that is rather a tame version of Oscar Wilde. He knows that the whiskey bought with Deasy’s paycheck has freed him up for this rave and a serious discussion about mocking continues with the librarian.

Mulligan approaches him with the telegram ‘a papal bull’. The telegram challenges responsibility beyond mere sentiment. Mulligan asks where he dispatched the telegram from and wonders if Stephen has spent the whole four quid and barrages him in a strong brogue about the terrible drought he and Haines incurred while waiting for him.