Dilly Dedalus has patiently waited for her father outside the auction rooms. He arrives instructing her to stand up straight by way of greeting and then mimics a hunch-back to drive home the point. Dilly is not amused and wants to know if he got any money. The clanging of the bell in front on the auction house punctuates a show down between father and daughter who persists until she gets a few coppers in spite of outrageous lies and comments from her father.

Mr Kernan has just closed a decent order and is puffed out with the success of the transaction. He celebrates with a stiff gin and talks with an air of authority about the latest news of the loss of life from an explosion on a ship because there were no lifeboats. He declares America even worse than Ireland and he dismisses it as containing the dregs of every other country.

Father Cowley stops to talk to Simon Dedalus. Mr Kernan primed from the gin admires his very smart second hand outfit and the good impression it allows him to create. He thinks of the young hero Robert Emmet and is critical of a car dangerously parked, the fault, no doubt, of some idiot from the country.

Mrs Breen is following her dotty husband from one solicitor to another because John Henry Menton left them waiting over an hour. Mr Kernan’s mind continues to race as he glows with success and gin. He just misses an opportunity to salute the Vice Regal cavalcade. Stephen Dedalus looks at a jeweler at work on his precious stones in a dusty shop. His long beard makes Stephen think of ancient times and Antisthenes. The midwife and her companion have made their way from Sandymount strand to Irishtown.