The reading stopped with "On fire, on fire!" (15.4660)
We are nearing the end of the current episode. Stephen has run out of Bella Cohen's brothel. Bloom pacifies Bella and paying for the chandelier damaged by Stephen, runs after him, finding him outside, having got into trouble with two British soldiers, Private Carr and Private Compton.
In another bout of fantasy, many characters we had met earlier reappear: The citizen (Cyclops, episode 12), the croppy boy (Sirens, episode 11), Rumbold, demon barber (there he was master barber; Cyclops, episode 12), Patrice and Kevin Egan (Proteus, episode 3), Edward the Seventh and even a composite character named aptly Don Emile Patrizio Franz Rupert Pope Hennessy!
And there is a lot of Irish history on these pages. For example, the song the citizen sings (15.4525) is not only a parody of a 1830 song but is also a reference to the trial of two Sinn Feiners in 1921. The ballad, Croppy Boy, which is about the 1798 Irish uprising, crops up again (15.4534). Irish expatriates such as Kevin Egan are also part of the scene. The most important of all the figures that appear is that of Old Gummy Granny. She, the old woman, who is Ireland itself, appears when the heads of the assembled women - Kitty, Biddy, etc - coalesce. But old Gummy Granny has all the typical attributes - toadstool, sugarloaf hat - of the Irish fairy. Stephen recognizes her.
