"For they are now tearing, that is, teartoretorning."

(255.12-257.2)  Thereto returning from another extended absence (I know, I know), the reading resumes with more shouts being hurled about in contemplation of HCE's arrival.  As noted by McHugh, much of this is the children calling upon various orders of knights for their protection, but also found in here is Shem (Pliny the Younger) writing more drummed-up accusations ("calamolumen of contumellas") about HCE ("Pliny the Elder").  This paragraph begins to wrap up with the children shouting to HCE, "And for the honour of Alcohol drop that you-know-what-I've-come-about-I-saw-your-act air!"  And it concludes with exaltation of ALP at the expense of her husband:  "Punch may be pottleproud but his Judy's a wife's wit better."

This invocation of ALP/Judy introduces her into the scene.  The producer of the play, "Mr John Baptister Vickar" (both St. John the Baptist and Giambattista Vico) puts HCE (the Adam figure of the Wake) to sleep and from his side draws his "cutletsized consort," ALP (the Eve figure of the Wake).  Here the narrator gives us the physical measurements of this "foundling filly."  She stands five foot five inches; weighs 150 pounds ("ten pebble ten"); measures 37-29-37; and is 23 inches around her thighs, 14 inches around her calves, and 9 inches around her feet.

At the arrival of the parents, all the children run home.  With their dismissal, Joyce also dismisses the Irish writers who came before him, including Edmund Burke, Yeats, Synge, Wilde, Shaw, Swift, and Sterne.  As those luminaries scatter home like children at the arrival of HCE (who in one sense represents Joyce himself at this moment in the books), Joyce delivers a grand proclamation about the Wake and its effect:  "For here the holy language.  Soons to come.  To pausse."

With their playtime done, the children tear into their homework and evening snacks.  They have a lot of subjects to tackle, including French, religion, science, literature, Irish history, geography, and geometry.  This being the Wake, these subjects often run together and get jumbled into each other.  The youngest of the children, Isabel, is sent up to bed.  The reading ends with her in the sky (her upstairs bedroom) sad.  The narrator asks, "What is amaid today todo?"

Tomorrow (I guarantee it . . . tomorrow):  the chapter's conclusion.