Read as far as "He entered softly." (Gabler 7.235) (Penguin 156.25)
News and the printing of newspapers are the subjects we read about on these pages.
Bloom and Red Murray are watching William Brayden, owner of the newspaper, go up the stairs. Rather Bloom watches the fat folds of the neck of Brayden. Red Murray is obviously full of respect for Brayden. He not only whispers, "Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour?" but he also says gravely: "His grace phoned down twice this morning." It is not clear who "His grace" refers to? To Brayden, to the Archbishop of Dublin, ...? This kind of respect is lost on Bloom. On hearing "Our Saviour" he thinks that he (Jesus?) rather looks like the Italian tenor Mario.
Bloom leaves Red Murray, and goes to meet Nannetti. (Joseph Patrick Nannetti was an Irish-Italian master-printer, who was also the Lord Mayor of Dublin.) He meets there Hayes, who has come to Nannetti to print the obituary notice of Dignam. Bloom is reminded of Dignam buried under the earth, and the old grey rat that was running around the gravestones that morning.
News and the printing of newspapers are the subjects we read about on these pages.
Bloom and Red Murray are watching William Brayden, owner of the newspaper, go up the stairs. Rather Bloom watches the fat folds of the neck of Brayden. Red Murray is obviously full of respect for Brayden. He not only whispers, "Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour?" but he also says gravely: "His grace phoned down twice this morning." It is not clear who "His grace" refers to? To Brayden, to the Archbishop of Dublin, ...? This kind of respect is lost on Bloom. On hearing "Our Saviour" he thinks that he (Jesus?) rather looks like the Italian tenor Mario.
Source: http://palazzodecandia.it/eng/tenor.html
Source: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp128375/joseph-patrick-nannetti
Watching Nannetti, Bloom thinks of the many kinds of headlines/news that would help a newspaper sell. Meanwhile the machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. (There is lots of 'sound' on these pages. Machines go thump, thump, sllt, sllt,... Doors go ee, cree...) As Hynes is leaving, Bloom reminds him that he should draw money from the cashier, hinting - for the third time that day - of the three bobs (shillings) Hynes has borrowed from him.
Bloom talks to Nannetti about the advertisement Alexander Keyes wants but knows not to say too much. Better not teach him his own business. Bloom is told that they could insert a par (paragraph) in the paper about Keyes if the latter agrees to give a three months' renewal. As no more attention is paid to Bloom, he stands watching the typesetters, and thinks of their work admiringly. Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice that. This line of thoughts make Bloom think of his father, of his reading his hagadah (Haggadah), and of the stories therein. Regarding the story, "And then the angel of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat", which has been interpreted as the history of successive empires that devastate and swallow one another - Egypt, Assyria, ... (Gifford, 7.213), Bloom feels it sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. "
Bloom leaves and goes down the house staircase. He takes out his handkerchief which smells of the lemon soap he had in his pocket. That smell reminds him of Martha's letter that he received that morning. "What perfume does your wife use?" While debating whether he should go home, he hears laughter from the Evening Telegraph office. Recognizing Ned Lmbert's voice, he entered softly, the office of the Telegraph.
Finally, Martin Cunningham's spelling bee conundrum reads: "It is amusing to view the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar while gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall." A conundrum is a riddle. Such conundrums are/were used to test whether one is able to correctly spell the words (with single ars, double ars, double esses, etc.)
