"Shaun! Shaun! Post the post!"

(403.1-405.2)  Chapter I of Book III of Finnegans Wake begins with the clock tolling 12 as HCE and ALP ("his Anastashie") are asleep in their bed.  (Campbell and Robinson note that later in the book we will learn that, after having passed out on the floor of the pub and dreamed the dream that comprises Book II, Chapter 4, HCE wakes up and goes upstairs to sleep in his bed.)  Also present in the room is a "blautoothdmand" (a blue-toothed demon) staring at the sleeping couple.  The demon, identified as Gugurtha, seems to be ogling ALP, the "most beautiful woman of the veilch veilchen veilde."  Before moving on with the story, the narrator repels the demon, saying, "Come not nere!  Black!  Switch out!"

With Gugurtha seemingly dealt with, the narrator moves into the real meat of the chapter.  During this "zero hour," the narrator thought that he (or she) heard "the peal of vixen's laughter among midnight's chimes" when the darkness renders "all animated greatbritish and Irish objects nonviewable to human watchers."  There was a chance, however, that the gleam of something floating down the river (perhaps "garments of laundry") could be seen.  As the narrator (maybe it's HCE) was "jogging along in a dream as dozing I was dawdling," he (I'm going to go with the male pronoun here, since it does seem like it's HCE recounting the dream) thought that he heard nature echoing certain words:  "Shaun!  Shaun!  Post the post!"

"I heard him so!" the narrator says.  As the figure came closer into view, a lamp on his belt illuminated his body.  What was once "a shaddo" was now clearly "the laddo!"  He was once a small lad, but now he was "growing to stay" and was a man.  He appeared "dressed like an earl in just the correct wear," and his Irish postman's outfit, which the narrator lays out in detail, consists of "everything the best."  At the conclusion of today's passage, the narrator confirms that the man was none other than "Shaun himself." 

Two pages in, this chapter strikes me as being very literal and straightforward.  We'll see how things progress tomorrow.