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[ Aetat. 36 ] J O Y C E 433primitive sex education. 12At the party's height Budgen stood on top ofthe money-safe and performed an Indian belly-dance, while Joyce performedhis spider-dance on the carpet below. None of them rememberedhow or when they got home. In the morning Budgen expected to bereprimanded for the mess, but when he came to work, not a trace of theparty could be seen. The house-porter had heard them and quietly cleanedup the room after their departure. Only a number of pairs of big scissors,used for cutting articles from newspapers, were missing. Joyce had stuffedhis pockets full of them with no explanation and taken them away.Doubtless he was tipsily preparing himself for the avalanche of reviewshe hoped soon to have to clip. But the consulate had no sooner got underway than Giorgio arrived to return the missing items. 13Joyce's roistering with Budgen and Suter became so frequent that, ashe told them one day, he quarreled with Nora about them. She said theywere leading him into overdrinking. Budgen, who admired her very much,went at once to Joyce's flatto ask her to join them and discuss the question.Looking like Queen Victoria, she entered the cafe where they weresitting and rebuked them. While they were defending themselves, a prostituteentered the cafe, to Nora's intense annoyance. She wanted to leaveat once but was coaxed into remaining. After this conference she wasmuch pleasanter to Budgen and Suter and considered them friends. 14Her signature appears among those at the bottom of a poem that Joyceindited to the absent Budgen one night:To Budgen, RaughtyTinkerOh! Budgen, boozer, bard, and canvas dauber,If to thine eyes these lines should some time comeBethink thee that the fleshpots of old EgyptNothing avail if beauty's heart would beat;Wherefore forswear butter besmeared RavioliWhich do the mainsprings of thy talent clogOn Roggenbrot, and Joghurt, and cold waterPaint and be damned. We wait. Begin, and end.James JoyceEthel TurnerNora JoyceW. H. Kerridge 15But if she indulged her husband's friends, Nora did not indulge him.One day in desperation at his drinking she suddenly informed him shehad torn up his manuscript. Joyce became instantly sober, and remainedso until he found the manuscript was intact.Generally, as Budgen and Suter observed, Nora handled Joyce as if hewere still half a child, and his book as if it were child's play of a ratherdisgusting kind. Once when they came to call she greeted them with thewords, 'My husband is writing a book; I tell you [this for the benefit of