In addition, Hynes asks Bloom after the burial what his "Christian" name is. Hynes (another decent Dubliner) pays so little attention to Bloom's answer that he garbles his name in a newspaper story, leaving out the "l" from "Bloom," and fails to include "Bloom's" first name at all. Also, the mistake over the name "M'Intosh" comes about because Hynes is only half-listening to Bloom (this incident, interestingly, resembles the mistake over Throwaway in the preceding episode); the mourner is a man in a Macintosh coat, not a man called M'Intosh, but Hynes ignores Bloom's "No," his answer to the question, "Is that his name?"
Even when Bloom's friends try to be pleasant, their attempts fail. Mr. Power's questions about Molly's upcoming concert tour suggest Boylan to Bloom, and these questions serve to remind Bloom of the reason why he cannot accompany Molly: He must be in Ennis to commemorate the anniversary of his father's death (June 27, 1886). In addition, Jack Power's inept query about "Madame" doesn't help matters any, but it does evoke the picture for us of Molly as a sort of symbolic whore. Finally, it is sad to see Bloom trying to ingratiate himself with these men who, despite their open and basically good natures, simply do not consider Bloom an intimate.
Nowhere is the gap between Bloom and his three acquaintances greater than in matters of religion. This disparity is perhaps seen best when the men discuss the manner of Dignam's demise. Power thinks that Dignam's sudden death makes him a "poor fellow." Bloom feels, though, that this type of death, like dying in one's sleep, is the best kind. The three men stare at him in wide-eyed silence. To the Roman Catholic, of course, unexpected death is the absolute worst kind of death because the victim has had no time to prepare for it — that is, he has had no time to have confession heard — if he is, by chance, in Mortal Sin. In theory, a drunken, syphilitic Dubliner, dying while asleep, would presumably be dispatched immediately to Hell. But Bloom, possibly influenced by his own father's worn-out end, which culminated in suicide, has no intimation of his conversational faux pas.
