"What hopends to they?"

(323.25-325.12)  As luck would have it, I didn't see any direct references to St. Patrick in today's reading.  Nevertheless, I'm sure Joyce would've gotten a kick out of the fact that I'm spending a significant portion of my St. Patrick's Day at home trying to decipher Finnegans Wake.

The passage for today presents a clear(er) diversion from the story of the Norwegian Captain, which has dominated this chapter thus far.  After the fiery condemnation of HCE/the captain that occurred at the end of yesterday's reading -- which the narrator likens to a horn signalling attack and a crack of thunder -- HCE, "the lord of the saloom" -- returns (apparently from behind his counter, though he may have gone outside to urinate again).  He reviews the crowd with his alien eyes ("ambilaterally alleyeoneyesed").  The patrons, confronted with the butt of their joke, are about to laugh as if their joke (or their yoke) had come to them on its own.  Like Adam ("his first foetotype"), HCE is just a man, "erning his breadth to the swelt of his proud."  Despite his faults, though, he's still a great figure, and the patrons accordingly "hailed him cheeringly, their encient, the murrainer, and walruse, the merman, ye seal that lubs you lasssers, Thallassee or Tullafilmagh, when come of uniform age."  (In other words, they cheered him accordingly, the ancient mariner, the mythic figure, who loves the girls of the sea and the terra firma, when they've reached the proper age.)

A joyous shout comes up from the crowd:  "Heave, coves, emptybloody!"  (Here comes emptybladder!)  But things are never good for long for ol' HCE (or the captain).  One of the tailor-patrons interrupts this cheering and tells his compatriots to "change all that whole set" (echoing yesterday's admonishments, "Take off thatch whitehat" and "Tick off that whilehot").  This tailor-patron doesn't want to celebrate the invading HCE/captain and instead inovkes the Irish nationalism of the crowd by leading them in another round of the Feinian chant, "Our set, our set's allohn."  With this, HCE and the captain are once again tossed into the metaphorical fire.

The proceedings are now interrupted (as I mentioned earlier) by the radio.  First, we hear a message asking for the return of a bereaved person to be brought back.  The person summoned is "Finucane-Lee, Finucane-Law," which must mean the deceased Finnegan.  After this, we get a weather report ("Welter focussed.") and the news ("What hopends to they?").  The news of the day follows Vico's cycle, of course.  The passage wraps up with some advertisements and a listing of upcoming programming, which includes horse races and midnight music from a "fourposter harp quartetto."