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“One of them was just bringing a long monologue to a close. The other, who walked on the verge of the path and was at times obliged to step on to the road, owing to his companion’s rudeness, wore an amused listening face.”
The narrator is describing Lenehan and Corley as they walk down the street. The narrator immediately characterizes Lenehan as someone who is easily dominated and overpowered because he is not speaking and he is constantly being forced off the sidewalk and onto the road by Corley. Joyce presents the reader with this image before he even introduces the two men by name. His decision to do so implies that Corley and Lenehan’s hero and sidekick dynamic is the most essential component of their characters.
“Though [Lenehan’s] eyes took note of many elements of the crowd through which he passed they did so morosely. He found trivial all that was meant to charm him and did not answer the glances which invited him to be bold. He knew that he would have to speak a great deal, to invent and to amuse, and his brain and throat were too dry for such a task. The problem of how he could pass the hours till he met Corley again troubled him a little. He could think of no way of passing them but to keep on walking.”
This passage is located about halfway through the story, when Lenehan is finally left on his own while Corley and the maid go on their date. Through this brief moment, it becomes abundantly clear that Lenehan is too quiet and too uncomfortable to exist on his own. This explains why he appears to gravitate towards people with stronger, more dominant personalities so that he can follow in their footsteps and avoid having to make any decisions for himself.
