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A week before the date fixed for the reading of the paper Stephen consigned a small packet covered with neat characters into the Auditor's hands. McCann smacked his lips and put the manuscript into the inside pocket of his coat:



— I'll read this tonight and I'll see you here at the same hour tomorrow. I think I know all that is in it beforehand.



The next afternoon McCann reported:



— Well, I've read your paper.



— Well?



— Brilliantly written — a bit strong, it seems to me. However I gave it to the President this morning to read.



— What for?



— All the papers must be submitted to him first for approval, you know.



— Do you mean to say, said Stephen scornfully, that the President must approve of my paper before I can read it to your society!



— Yes. He's the Censor.



— What a valuable society!



— Why not?



— It's only child's play, man. You remind me of children in the nursery.



— Can't be helped. We must take what we can get.



— Why not put up the shutters at once?



— Well, it is valuable. It trains young men for public speaking — for the bar and the political platform.



— Mr Daniel could say as much for his charades.



— I daresay he could.



— So this Censor of yours is inspecting my essay?



— Well. He's liberal-minded.



— Ay.



While the two young men were holding this conversation on the steps of the Library, Whelan, the College orator came up to them. This suave rotund young man, who was the Secretary of the Society, was reading for the Bar. His eyes regarded Stephen now with mild, envious horror and he forgot all his baggage from Attica:



— Your essay is tabu, Daedalus.



— Who said so?



— The Very Reverend Dr Dillon.



The delivery of this news was followed by a silence during which Whelan slowly moistened his lower lip with saliva from his tongue and McCann made ready to shrug his shoulders.



— Where is the damned old fool? said the essayist promptly.



Whelan blushed and pointed his thumb over his shoulder. Stephen in a moment was half across the quadrangle. McCann called after him:



— Where are you going?



Stephen halted but, discovering that he was too angry to trust himself to speak, he merely pointed in the direction of the College, and went forward quickly.



So after all his trouble, thinking out his essay and composing his periods, this old fogey was about to prohibit it! His indignation settled into a mood of politic contempt as he crossed the Green. The clock in the hall of the College pointed to half past three as Stephen addressed the doddering door-porter. He had to speak twice, the second time with a distinct, separated enunciation, for the door-porter was rather stupid and deaf:



— Can — I — see — the — President?




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