"a smuggler for lifer"

(247.17-249.4)  We pick up with Glugg dejected, once again, before Chuff.  And, once again, he's in tears:  "He wept indeiterum" (as noted by McHugh, "indeiterum" = "inde iterum," Latin for "after that again").  As he stands there, "[h]ighly momourning," he sees his future before him, one where he remains "[m]elained from nape to kneecap."  His sad state is contrasted with Izod's, who is "vied [white] from her girders [garters] up."  The Floras bear false witness against Glugg, striking a hidden wound to his ego.  He washes this bruise with "Soldwoter" -- the saltwater of his tears.  He can see the truth in black and white with his "eyetrompit," or telescope.  In contrast to this black and white, the Floras taunt him with a variety of colors, one for each Flora (for example, "apple, bacchante, custard, dove, eskimo, feldgrau," and so on).

As the Floras taunt him, however, Izod stands both beside and apart from them.  The majority of page 248 is dedicated to Izod providing Glugg with numerous hints to help him solve the riddle.  The answer, which she hints at around and around without every actually stating it out loud, is "heliotrope."  One gets the sense that Glugg's not going to get it, though.

As Izod hints at the answer, she also explains her current situation.  She's got a suitor -- a "bellyswain" -- who is strong but knows as much about being a husband as a colorblind person knows about matching garments.  She wants Glugg and Chuff to make peace:  "Shake hands through the thicketloch!  Sweet swanwater!"  Finally, there is something imminent on the horizon:  "And somebody's coming, I feel for a fect."  The passage draws to a conlcusion with Izod urging Glugg to action, rather than to sit there looking at the colors of the Floras, for her suitor -- Chuff -- will go to work on her while Glugg stands idly by:  "You can colour up till you're prawn while I go squirt with any cockle.  When here who adolls me infuxes sleep."  Today's reading ends with Izod giving Glugg a word of encouragement:  "Wink's the winning word."

Izod clearly wants Glugg to succeed in answering the riddle, but with Glugg's anxiety (much like his father, HCE's) combined with the taunting of the Floras and the opposition from the cocksure Chuff, Izod's assistance may not be enough.  Tomorrow, we'll draw closer to what is feeling like Glugg's inevitable fate.