"I sniffed that lad long before anyone."

(93.22-95.26)  Yesterday's reading gave us a slightly more extended introduction to HCE's children, and today's reading starts off by giving us a slightly more extended introduction to the mysterious letter, which has been referenced before but not fully explained.  With the trial scene wrapped up, the narrator turns our attention toward that letter:  "The letter!  The litter!  The soother the bitther!"  The letter is eyebrow penciled and lipstick penned, and these traditionally female instruments indicate that the letter is written by a woman.  "Borrowing a word and begging the question and stealing tinder and slipping like soap," the letter's not a wholly original one.  The narrator goes on to detail the many songs the letter borrows from (including "Finnegan's Wake") before setting forth what may be the letter's ultimate theme:  "The solid man saved by his sillied woman."

My secondary sources note that the letter seems to describe and have an effect on each member of HCE's family.  First, we get, "Wind broke it.  Wave bore it.  Reed wrote of it.  Syce ran with it."  This is later followed by, "It made ma make merry and sissy so shy and rubbed some shine off Shem and put some shame into Shaun."  We also learn that the letter is torn at some point, and then retrieved by the Hen.  We finally learn that the letter touches on the HCE-two young women-three soldiers story we've been hearing about throughout the Wake:  "A pair of sycopanties with amygdaleine eyes, one old obster lumpky pumpkin and three meddlars on their slies."  And of course, we get rebirth out of death:  "And that ws how framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose, finfin funfun, a sitting arrows."  The narrator concludes this introduction to the letter by asking, "What was it?" and answering,

A . . . . . . . . . . !

?  . . . . . . . . . O!

In other words, the letter runs from Alpha to Omega.

The narrative then returns to the four judges we met yesterday.  They're now sitting around in their chambers, drinking, and recounting the trial.  Their conversation quickly centers on HCE, "the badfather, the same, the great Howdoyoucallem, and his old nickname, Dirty Daddy Pantaloons."  They don't seem to like HCE that much, and they devote a lot of their talk to HCE's stench (which is probably especially bad, now that he's in the grave).  One says, "I mind the gush off the mon like Ballybock manure works on a tradewinds day."  The paragraph (and today's passage) ends with one of the judges, who "sniffed that lad long before anyone," telling a story of his first date with a redheaded girl.  The judge and the girl were engaging in "fine feelplay" and "kissabetts frisking" when the girl said to the judge, "My perfume of the pampas, . . . I'd sooner one precious sip at your pure mountain dew than enrich my acquaintance with that big brewer's belch."  Obviously, these judges aren't afraid to speak ill of the dead.