Ulysses by James Joyce Chapter 1 Page 51

hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and said:

We oughtn’t to laugh, I suppose. He’s rather blasphemous. I’m not a believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it somehow, doesn’t it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?

The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered.

O, Haines said, you have heard it before?

Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.

You’re not a believer, are you?

Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the narrow sense of the