"How culious an epiphany!"

(506.11-508.11)  Resuming yesterday's discussion of the fall of Satan from the Tree of Life, the old man asks Shaun if he was there when Satan fell and whether that was how Satan (who shares characteristics with HCE) "became the foerst of our treefellers."  Shaun answers yes to both questions, and says that Satan was "the fanest of our truefalluses."  Shaun adds that sometimes he feels that he's far away from this "capocapo promontory" (perhaps the Tree, perhaps Satan), while other times he feels as if it's "making me onions woup all kinds of ways" (perhaps close enough to be making Shaun onion soup, or to cause Shaun to weep as if he were exposed to the cut onions?).

After a brief transition in which Shaun takes offense to the old man's description of ALP ("Never you mind about my mother or her hopitout," he says), the old man returns his full attention to HCE, instructing Shaun to "[c]onsider yourself on the stand now and watch your words, take my advice."  The old man describes HCE -- here under the alias "Toucher 'Thom'" -- as a 50 year-old who "has more dirt on him than an old dog has fleas" and who spends most of his time at the Green Man pub, where "he steals, pawns, belches and is a curse, drinking gaily two hours after closing time."  When he's not in the bar, he's bothering the public as they do their grocery shopping.  Shaun replies that this man is "mad as the brambles" and "has kissed me more than once, I am sorry to say."

After evading questioning for a moment, the old man urges Shaun to "wash and brush up your memoirias a little bit."  He then tells Shaun he's wondering whether Thom, a Methodist who some say isn't really named Thom, wore "his cowbeamer and false clothes of a brewer's grains pattern with back buckons" on the night in question.  

"I bet you are," replies Shaun to this old man, who said he was wondering.  "Well, he was wandering, you bet, for I am sorry to have to tell you, hullo and evoe, they were coming down from off him."  This revelation (that Thom's clothes were falling off of him) elicits a reply:  "How culious an ephiphany!"  The normal back-and-forth pattern of the past few pages would indicate that this "HCE" reply comes from the old man who has been examining Shaun, but it seems to me that it might be spoken by one of the other three old men, for the next line of dialogue -- which I'll get to in tomorrow's reading -- appears to be spoken by the examiner.