Then would begin Stephen's run round the park. When the order list had been booked the two would go on to the park where an old friend of Stephen's father, Mike Flynn, would be found seated on a bench, waiting for them. Do you hear me, sir? They're good for your bowels. He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust or three or four American apples and thrust them generously into his grandnephew's hand while the shopman smiled uneasily and, on Stephen's feigning reluctance to take them, he would frown and say: -Take them, sir. Stephen was glad to go with him on these errands for uncle Charles helped him very liberally to handfuls of whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrels outside the counter. On week days he did messages between the house in Carysfort Avenue and those shops in the main street of the town with which the family dealt. Uncle Charles was a hale old man with a well tanned skin, rugged features and white side whiskers.

During the first part of the summer in Blackrock uncle Charles was Stephen's constant companion. His arbour, as he called the reeking outhouse which he shared with the cat and the garden tools, served him also as a sounding-box: and every morning he hummed contentedly one of his favourite songs : O, TWINE ME A BOWER or BLUE EYES AND GOLDEN HAIR or THE GROVES OF BLARNEY while the grey and blue coils of smoke rose slowly from his pipe and vanished in the pure air. While he smoked the brim of his tall hat and the bowl of his pipe were just visible beyond the jambs of the outhouse door. Every morning, therefore, uncle Charles repaired to his outhouse but not before he had greased and brushed scrupulously his back hair and brushed and put on his tall hat. It's very nice, Simon, replied the old man. Damn me, said Mr Dedalus frankly, if I know how you can smoke such villainous awful tobacco. The outhouse will do me nicely: it will be more salubrious. All serene, Simon, said the old man tranquilly. Uncle Charles smoked such black twist that at last his nephew suggested to him to enjoy his morning smoke in a little outhouse at the end of the garden.

Blank Canvas by Mere Joyce