--It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator,
full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will not
say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely upon the
new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, therefore
worthless.

He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised an
outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and
ringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new focus.


IMPROMPTU


In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O'Molloy:

--Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed. That he had
prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one
shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy
beard round it. He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he
looked (though he was not) a dying man.

His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O'Molloy's towards
Stephen's face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His unglazed
linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his withering hair.
Still seeking, he said:

--When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply.
Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these.