As Mr. Doran descends from his room in the boarding house, summoned by Mrs. Mooney to discuss his affair with Polly, he passes by Jack Mooney on the stairwell. Mr. Doran is unsettled by the presence of this man, who has clearly been drinking. This, combined with Mr. Doran's choice of metaphor to describe Jack, makes it clear that he has come to expect violent behavior from Polly's brother:
On the last flight of stairs he passed Jack Mooney who was coming up from the pantry nursing two bottles of Bass. They saluted coldly; and the lover’s eyes rested for a second or two on a thick bulldog face and a pair of thick short arms.
Mr. Doran describes Jack as having a "bulldog" face, comparing him to an animal often perceived in common visual language as brutish and violent. He follows this metaphor with a recounting of Jack's past behavior toward Polly's lovers, clearly worried that he will be the target of some vitriolic backlash:
Jack kept shouting at him that if any fellow tried that sort of a game on with his sister he’d bloody well put his teeth down his throat, so he would.
These passages, taken together, speak to the coexistence of physical violence and sexuality Joyce observes in Irish society. Jack is Polly's brother, not her father or her guardian; even so, he feels entitled to comment on and respond violently to any romantic or sexual interactions of hers that he disapproves of.
