Today we read as far as "That's why I asked you if you wrote poetry in Itlaian." 16.881 (Gabler), p. 737 (Penguin).
A streetwalker appears at the Cabman's Shelter (the same one Bloom had tried to avoid being seen by in Sirens, and now tries to avoid again) when its keeper makes a rude sign to take herself off. Bloom continues his efforts to engage Stephen in conversation, rambling on about various subjects (some necessary evils of society, the importance of compulsory medical inspection of brothels, the human brain, the soul), to which Stephen only offers a half-hearted and disinterested response in terms of a scholastic definition of the soul - and at which "Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth" (in plain words, he shuts up and does not have a clue about what Stephen is saying). The two characters seem to operate mentally on a different level. And, although they have finally come together, there has not been anything climactic or grand about it (as there would have been, say, in the meeting of father and son in a classical epic as in the coming home of Odysseus).
But Bloom, who has not had any kind of intellectual conversation the whole day, is unrelenting in his efforts to win or impress Stephen. He even tries, unsuccessfully, to make him drink coffee (and even attempts to get it ready by stirring the clotted sugar from the bottom) and eat a bun that was like one of the skipper's bricks disguised. At the same time, he remains wary of other people's tales. While "Sherlockholmesing up" the sailor and considering his tales he whispers to Stephen "Do you think they are genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and lie like old boots" (thereby ironically calling to mind Sherlock Holmes' classic reading of boots: he knows where a certain character has been because he can tell from his boots - which here tell the truth).
We will probably find a lot more of this hovering between a story's assumed likelihood and unlikelihood (a 'can't be true' and a 'but then it may be true'), as in: Yet still, though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air, life was full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly accurate gospel.
We will probably find a lot more of this hovering between a story's assumed likelihood and unlikelihood (a 'can't be true' and a 'but then it may be true'), as in: Yet still, though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air, life was full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly accurate gospel.
Finally, the Bloom we meet in this chapter is not exactly the Bloom we have encountered so far. Here he is - on one level - inquisitive and bombastic in the use of language. On another level - in his caring attitude towards Stephen, in the various topics he touches upon - he is still the Bloom we know.
