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Another favourite was "Who's Who." A person goes out of the room and the rest of the company choose the name of someone who is supposed to have special attractions for the absent player. This latter, when he returns to the company, has to ask questions all round and try to guess the name. This game was generally used to the discomfiture of the young male guests for the manner in which it was played suggested that each young student had an affair of the heart with some young lady within tolerable distance of him: but the young men, who were at first surprised by these implications, ended by looking as if they thought that the sagacity of the other players had just forestalled them in an unexpected, not unpleasant, discovery. No such suggestion could be seriously made by the company to fit Stephen's case and so the first time he played the game they chose differently for him. The players were unable to answer his questions when he returned to the room: such questions as: "Where does the person live?" "Is the person married or single?" "What age is the person?" could not be answered by the circle until McCann had been consulted in a swift undertone. The answer "Norway" gave Stephen the clue at once and so the game ended and the company proceeded to divert themselves as before this serious interruption. Stephen sat down beside one of the daughters and, while admiring the rural comeliness of her features, waited quietly for her first word which, he knew, would destroy his satisfaction. Her large handsome eyes looked at him for a while as if they were a about to trust him and then she said:



— How did you guess it so quickly?



— I knew you meant him. But you're wrong about his age.



Others had heard this: but she was impressed by a possible vastness of the unknown, complimented to confer with one who conferred directly with the exceptional. She leaned forward to speak with soft seriousness.



— Why, how old is he?

— Over seventy.

— Is he?

from an epiphany:
"Dublin: at Sheehy's, Belvedere Place
Joyce— I knew you meant him. But you're wrong about his age.
Maggie Sheehy— (leans forward to speak seriously) Why, how old is he?
Joyce— Seventy-two.
Maggie Sheehy— Is he?"


Stephen now imagined that he had explored this region sufficiently and he would have discontinued his visits had not two causes induced him to continue. The first cause was the unpleasant character of his home and the second was the curiosity occasioned by the advent of a new figure. One evening while he was musing on the horsehair sofa he heard his name called and stood up to be introduced. A dark a full-figured girl was standing before him and, without waiting for Miss Daniel's introduction, she said:



— I think we know each other already.



She sat beside him on the sofa and he found out that she was studying in the same college with the Miss Daniels and that she always signed her name in Irish. She said Stephen should a learn Irish too and join the League. A young man of the company, whose face wore always the same look of studied purpose, spoke with her across Stephen addressing her familiarly by her Irish name. Stephen therefore spoke very formally and always addressed her as 'Miss Clery.' She seemed on her part to include him in the a general scheme of her nationalising charm: and when he helped her into her jacket she allowed his hands to rest for a moment against the warm flesh of her shoulders.




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