"And better and better on butter and butter."

(405.3-407.9)  The chapter's opening "picture primitive" of Shaun continues in today's reading.  Even though the narrator likens himself to the "poor ass" or "fourpart tinckler's dunkey" that followed the four old men, he thought that the person standing before him was "Shaun in proper person."  Shaun looked great to the narrator, and was "in much more than his usual health."  "He was immense," the narrator goes on to explain, for he had just finished a 24-hour-long feast.

The bulk of today's passage going forward is devoted to detailing the tremendous amount of food and drink that Shaun enjoyed during that feast.  This ranges from breakfast food ("blood and thirsthy orange" and "half of a pint of becon with newled googs") to entrees ("a half a pound or round steak, very rare" and "a pair of chops") to alcoholic beverages ("a fingerhot of rheingenever" and "the best of wine").  Shaun enjoyed this feast, "For his heart was as big as himself, so it was, ay and bigger!"

"Thus thicker will he grow now, grew new," the narrator says.  "And better and better on butter and butter."  We shouldn't mistake him for saying that Shaun "was guilbey of gulpable gluttony as regards chewable boltaballs," he cautions, but "between gormandising and gourmeteering, he grubbed his tuck all right."

The reading concludes with Shaun standing before the narrator, "plainly out on the ramp and mash, as you might say."  We leave off with Shaun just about to speak.