--You, said Heron. Byron the greatest poet! He's only a poet for
uneducated people.

--He must be a fine poet! said Boland.

--You may keep your mouth shut, said Stephen, turning on him boldly.
All you know about poetry is what you wrote up on the slates in the
yard and were going to be sent to the loft for.

Boland, in fact, was said to have written on the slates in the yard a
couplet about a classmate of his who often rode home from the college
on a pony:


As Tyson was riding into Jerusalem
He fell and hurt his Alec Kafoozelum.


This thrust put the two lieutenants to silence but Heron went on:

--In any case Byron was a heretic and immoral too.

--I don't care what he was, cried Stephen hotly.

--You don't care whether he was a heretic or not? said Nash.

--What do you know about it? shouted Stephen. You never read a line of
anything in your life except a trans, or Boland either.