/lit/ - Literature

>be me
>hit rock bottom
>thing I've worked for during the past 8 month crashed and burned in figurative fire
>started smoking again
>no joy
>got to 4Chan which sometimes gives me joy after hard days
>go on 4Chan
>4Chan hits rock bottom

I admit it. I don't get every joke by James Joyce.
Sue me, I don't care. But riddle me this:
What's the bloody joke here exactly?
>What price ellipsoidal balls! chase me, ladies, I'm in the cavalry!

Inb4: Haha! He said balls.

Full text, if needed:
>-- So we must distinguish between elliptical and ellipsoidal. Perhaps some of you gentlemen may be familiar with the works of Mr W. S. Gilbert. In one of his songs he speaks of the billiard sharp who is condemned to play:

On a cloth untrue
With a twisted cue
And elliptical billiard balls.


-- He means a ball having the form of the ellipsoid of the principal axes of which I spoke a moment ago.

Moynihan leaned down towards Stephen's ear and murmured:

-- What price ellipsoidal balls! chase me, ladies, I'm in the cavalry!

His fellow student's rude humour ran like a gust through the cloister of Stephen's mind, shaking into gay life limp priestly vestments that hung upon the walls, setting them to sway and caper in a sabbath of misrule.