from James Joyce*, Ulysses, page 70 (episode 5, lines 531-38):—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the second.
—I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
—What's that? his sharp voice said.
—I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away that moment.
from James Joyce*, Ulysses, page 70 (episode 5, lines 517-44):He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the coolwrapped soap in his left hand.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:
—Hello, Bloom. What's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a minute.
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons's yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
—I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper and get shut of him.
—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the second.
—I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
—What's that? his sharp voice said.
—I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away that moment. Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms.
—I'll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
from James Joyce*, Ulysses, pages 274-75 (episode 12, lines 1548-58; the italics are Joyce's):—I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.
—Who? says I.
—Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on Throwaway and he's gone to gather in the shekels.
—Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a horse in anger in his life?
—That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse.
—He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.
from James Joyce*, Ulysses, page 529 (episode 16, lines 1274-85; the italics are Joyce's):While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, his side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For entire colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander's Throwaway, b. h. by Rightaway-Thrale, 5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1, lord Howard de Walden's Zinfandel (M. Cannon) 2, Mr W. Bass's Sceptre 3. Betting 5 to 4 on Zinfandel, 20 to 1 Throwaway (off). Sceptre a shade heavier, 5 to 4 on Zinfandel, 20 to 1 Throwaway (off). Throwaway and Zinfandel stood close order. It was anybody's race then the rank outsider drew to the fore, got long lead, beating lord Howard de Walden's chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile course. . . .
Some clear and certain statements - factual and with an unproblematical relationship to the passage - can be said about Bloom's two remarks, "I was just going to throw it away" and "I was going to throw it away that moment." There really was a horse race, the Gold Cup, at Ascot in England on June 16, 1904. Lyons mentions this when he asks to see Bloom's newspaper, and Bloom recognizes this, even though he seems to have no idea which horses are entered in the race. There really was a horse named Throwaway in the race, a horse that ran as a 20-to-1 outsider. Throwaway went on to win the race. All this becomes clear later in Ulysses. A group of Dubliners - all of whom bet on Sceptre (even Lyons, who temporarily followed up on what he thought was Bloom's tip but who was later dissuaded from the bet) - talk in a pub, and one of the men reports Bloom's conversation with Lyons. As a result, the men believe that Bloom, in what they see as typical of Jews, had an inside tip on Throwaway, won a pile of money on the race, and didn't share his winnings with the other men by buying them a round of drinks. Bloom is almost injured in an attack as a result. He eventually reads a newspaper account of the race, but it is not clear even then if he connects the results of the race with his remark earlier in the day to Lyons.
An annotation can point out all of these details. But how much should it say? Should beginning readers, in a note to a passage at this early point in Ulysses, be told information that they will only learn later on in the book?
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