Tob Dilke and Halley

• Tom Dick and Harry: referring to several randomly-selected people, not necessarily three and not necessarily all men.
  • A common reference used throughout the Wake - usually for the three soldiers who witnessed HCE's crime in Phoenix Park.
  • Also HCE, Shaun and Shem
• Tobh (Hebrew): good
• Tob: short for Tobias or Toby
  • Perhaps Tobias Smollett (1721 – 11771)a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque nove.
• Sir Charles Dilke: (1843 – 1911) an English Liberal and reformist politician. Touted as a future prime minister, his aspirations to higher political office were effectively terminated in 1885, after a notorious and well-publicised divorce case/sex scandal, much ike Parnell.
  • There is an 1880s music hall song by Gilbert and MacDermott', "Charlie Dilke Upset the Milk":

      Master Dilke upset the mil
      When taking it home to Chelsea;
      The papers say that Charlie's gay
      Rather a wilful wag!"

• • • Note that"gay" in the 1889s still referred to heterosexuality.-
• Edmond Halley (1656 – 1742): an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain.