James Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus No. 17

Cf. 1922 3:22-23; Gabler3:25]

Mulligan has given his "long slow whistle of call" and now pauses "awhile in rapt attention," turning his head back and forth as he listens for the natural echo that's the punchline to his joke.

Though we've been moving through these opening lines at our own rather stately, plump pace, I think you can still notice that there's rather a lot of attention given to this scene by Joyce.  There aren't many such scenes in the novel, and Mulligan quickly becomes a peripheral figure.  It suggests to me that the scene retains a number of vestigial clues, styles, and storylines--perhaps when it was written in 1913 and 1914, Joyce had a very different idea of the struggle that Stephen was going to face during the day, and Mulligan was more involved.