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[ Aetat. 30 ] J O Y C E 335knew already, that this was the way Roberts had played for years.* OnSeptember 5 Roberts proposed Joyce take over the sheets for Dublinersfor thirty pounds, and Joyce agreed, saying he would give him a bill atten days' date and would pay it in Trieste. He would publish, he said,under the imprint of the 'Jervis Press.' Roberts objected that Maunsel &Co. had works in Jervis Lane, so Joyce changed it to the 'Liffey Press.'By a ruse he managed to get a complete set of the proofs from Roberts,and was barely in time, for now the printer, John Falconer, suddenlyinterposed. Having heard of Roberts's difficulties with Joyce, he announcedhe would neither turn over the unpatriotic sheets nor take anyfee for the printing. 61Joyce went to plead with him, but uselessly. Hewalked about the streets and came back to Mrs. Murray's house, wherehe and Nora were staying, utterly disconsolate. His aunt had a specialsupper ready, but he went directly upstairs and sang 'Una furtiva lagrima'from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore, accompanying himself on the piano.Nora, embarrassed by this behavior, stayed below until Mrs. Murray cried,'Ah! do go up to him! Can't you see, all that is for you!' Nora replied, iwould much prefer, Aunt Josephine, he came down to eat the chop youkept for him.' 62The song was for her, and for Dubliners too.On September 11 the sheets were destroyed; 63Joyce said by fire, Roberts,stickling for accuracy in his later accounts, insisted they were destroyedby guillotining and pulping. 64Burnt or dismembered in effigy,Joyce had no further business in Dublin, and he left with Nora and thechildren that same night.He stopped in London long enough to offer his book to the EnglishReview and to Colum's publisher, Mills & Boon, without success, thencrossed to Flushing, Holland. As he waited for the train at the station,he was provoked to write a new broadside, 'Gas from a Burner,' ostensiblyspoken by Roberts himself, but blended with Falconer, the printer, andhe finished it in the train on the way to Munich. Unlike 'The HolyOffice,' it was wholly personal invective:Gas from a BurnerLadies and gents, you are here assembledTo hear why earth and heaven trembledBecause of the black and sinister artsOf an Irish writer in foreign parts.He sent me a book ten years ago;I read it a hundred times or so,Backwards and forwards, down and up,Through both ends of a telescope.I printed it all to the very last wordBut by the mercy of the Lord* Joyce repaid Griffith's sympathy by making frequent mention of him (alone among Irishpoliticians of the period) in Ulysses. By the time he finished the book Griffith had beenelected first president of the Irish Free State, a coincidence Joyce welcomed. 60