Written texts and pieces of paper clutter Dublin on 16 June 1904. In transit, a ‘crumpled throwaway’ moves along the current of the Liffey (10.294–7, 10.753–4, and 10.1096–9); Deasy's letter is repurposed as scribbling paper for Stephen's poetic composition, later found by Bloom (3.404–7 and 13.1246–7); letters are received, written, and dwelled upon; an advertisement is placed, galleys are proofed, and Bloom ‘watch[es] a typesetter neatly distributing type’ (7.204); a library book requires renewal (4.360–1), but remains out of date (16.1421–2); and Bloom picks up Sweets of Sin, a novel which remains both in his pocket and on his mind. In ‘Eumaeus’, the sixteenth episode of Ulysses and first part of the final ‘Nostos’, there is something a little wrong with anything on paper or card. The sailor ‘D. B. Murphy, A. B. S.’ – regaling Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and others with seafaring stories in a cabman’s shelter late at night – presents ‘a not very cleanlooking folded document’ as his discharge papers (16.452–5), quickly followed by a postcard ‘A friend of mine sent me’ contradictorily addressed to a ‘Señor A Boudin’ (16.471 and 16.489). The Evening Telegraph write-up of Patrick Dignam's funeral, read by Bloom, is peppered with errors of omission and inclusion; mistakes foretold by the pun ‘tell a graphic lie’ (16.1232). Even a photograph of Molly Bloom shown by her husband to Stephen is not just ‘faded’ but ‘slightly soiled’: ‘an added charm’ (16.1425 and 16.1465–8). Something is a little wrong too with ‘Eumaeus’ itself: though the text of the episode looks on the page like the straightforward third person narrative we might yearn for after the riot of ‘Circe’, it swiftly becomes clear that the narrative of Bloom and Stephen making their way from the brothels of Nighttown to Bloom's home on Eccles Street will not be straightforward at all. In a confusion of posturing and slip-ups, populated by characters with mistaken, false, and mislaid identities, suspicion coils through ‘Eumaeus’ – and faced with such an intriguing and evasive narrative, we are provoked to read suspiciously. As survivors (of sorts) of the games of previous episodes, of the geographically hopping omniscience of ‘Wandering Rocks’ or the melodic repetitions of ‘Sirens’, by the time we reach ‘Eumaeus’ we have some experience of reading the narratives of the novel with suspicion and of filling in narrative unknowns.