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20 J A M E Soperatic arias, and he was married to a woman whom all the Joyce children,including James, depended upon for help and advice. JosephineGiltrap Murray was intelligent, resourceful, and unfailingly generous,attributes that could not be too abundant in those harassed lives. Sheseemed to her nephew James to be a wise woman, and he brought herhis shocking problems without shocking her. She had musical training,too, and sometimes she and John Joyce and May would play trios on thepiano.William and John are the two brothers, Joe and Alphy, sketched inthe story 'Clay 7 in Dubliners, who are not on speaking terms with eachother. Maria, the little laundress who tries to make peace between them,was also a relative of the Murrays, and one of whom May Joyce wasespecially fond. On the Flynn side of the family was the priest describedin 'The Sisters,' who became harmlessly insane and lost his parish. 42Bitsand pieces of the Murrays appear in the stories; for example, it was William'schild who said, as at the end of 'Counterparts,' Til say a Hail,Mary for you, pa, if you don't beat me.' 4 3But with artistic dispassionatenessthat transcended family quarrels, Farrington's impudent, frustratedcharacter in that story fuses William Murray's temperament with JohnJoyce's.May, the only representative of the Murrays whom he could bear, andJohn Stanislaus Joyce went off to London for their honeymoon in thelate spring of 1880. On their return they settled at 47 NorthumberlandAvenue, Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire), and he took up his positionin the office of the Collector of Rates. He was collector for Inns Quayand Rotunda wards, later for North Dock ward. His cocksureness and witquickly became famous in the office. One day the Collector Generalcame downstairs with an elderly clergyman holding a final notice in hishand. The clergyman, known to be a heavy drinker, was named Rhynardt,'and he complained to the C.G.,' John Joyce wrote much later tohis son, 'that I wrongly addressed him as Richard. I apologized for themistake of my clerk (Bob Cowall)* but said I would be more careful infuture in the spelling of his name and would not forget it ended withD.T> The Collector General went upstairs breaking his heart laughing.' 44VQn^another occasion someone complained that his name had been spelledwith two l's instead of one. 'Which / would you like to have removed?'asked John Joyce gravely. 45Once John Joyce was late in sending out thecustomary final notices to pay to residents of Eccles Street. He decidedto save himself trouble by serving court summonses for non-paymentbefore all the notices had been issued. On court day he attended thepolice magistrate's court to get his decrees or money. To his horror hediscovered that the magistrate himself, a man named Keyes, was on thelist of Eccles Street delinquents. Before calling the cases Keyes had a* Cowall appears in Ulysses under his own name.