"the auspicious waterpoof monarch of all Ireland"

(379.17-381.9)  Ok, today's reading concludes the crowd's shouted insults to HCE, who sits alone in his pub after closing time, and propels us toward the conclusion of the third chapter of Book II of Finnegans Wake.  The crowd begins its wrap up by noting that HCE wil "be the deaf of us."  Nevertheless, the crowd maintains a soft spot for him (that soft spot corresponds with its collective thirst), and goes as far as saying, "But of all your wanings send us out your peppydecked ales and you'll not be such a bad lot."  Their following shouts are interrupted by the tolling of bells:  "B E N K!"; "B I N K"; "B U N K"; and "B E N K  B A N K  B O N K."  In the Skeleton Key, Campbell and Robinson suggest that these words represent the fall of Finnegan/HCE as he absorbs the verbal punches of the crowd, while that book's editor, Edmund L. Epstein, notes that the predominant interpretation of the words is that they represent the "midnight Angelus" and signal the changing power structure of the family.  I like both interpretations.

Anyway, seeing as how this is the crowd's "last fight," and that they say, "We're been carried away," the crowd leaves it to "the three muskrateers" -- "Keyhoe, Danelly and Pykemhyme" -- to tell what happens next to HCE in his "Malincurred Mansion."  This indicates that this chapter has been narrated by the patrons of the pub, and I think that's accurate on one level.  The wrapping up takes up the majority of the final three pages of the chapter, and introduces HCE as "King Roderick O'Conor, the paramount chief polemarch and last preelectric king of Ireland."  Notably, the historic Roderic O'Connor was indeed the last high king of Ireland, and his ineffectiveness resulted in Ireland's fall to Henry II's England.  HCE/Roderick is not necessarily the last (i.e., the least) king of Ireland, the three men note.  It's just that he was "the eminent king of all Ireland himself after the last preeminent king of all Ireland, the whilom joky old top that went before him in the Taharan dynasty, King Arth Mockmorrow Koughenough of the leathered leggions."  Arth was a good king, who made sure that each poor man had a poached fowl in his pot.  Roderick/HCE, now, finds himself "all alone by himself in his grand old handwedown pile" after his "unimportant" people/patrons left for "their castles of mud, as best they cud."  

And "what do you think he did," the three men ask.  We'll find out when we reach the chapter's conclusion tomorrow.