"an illstarred beachbusker"

(40.14-42.16)  Alright, time for Post #2 in today's doubleheader.  Glancing at the near horizon, I see that the end of chapter two of the Wake is quickly approaching.  The plan is to try for another doubleheader tomorrow so I can wrap up the chapter on Monday.  Leave it to a recovering English major to spend a significant portion of a beautiful Memorial Day weekend indoors f(l)ailing through Finnegans Wake.

As the sentence that began on page 39 continues, we meet the trio (I diverge here from the interpretation set forth in Tindall's Reader's Guide that there's actually a quartet here) who is listening to Treacle Tom's alcoherent tale of HCE.  First there's Peter Cloran, the "small and stonybroke cashdraper's executive."  Then there's O'Mara, also known as Mildew Lisa, "an exprivate secretary of no abode" who has lately been sleeping on the streets.  (Tindall counts O'Mara and Mildew Lisa as separate people.  I think it's relatively clear that Joyce is just giving us two names for one exprivate secretary.)  Finally, there's Hosty, the defacto leader of the band.  Hosty is "an illstarred beachbusker" who lacks "rootie" and "scrapie" (McHugh identifies these in his Annotations as slang for "bread" and "butter") and is "on the verge of selfabyss" "with melancholia over everything in general."  Hosty's in a bad way, and he's working on a plan to procure a "parabellum" (McHugh notes that this is a type of pistol) and "blow the sibicidal napper off himself."  He's unsuccessfully tried to get into a series of hospitals, and now he's sharing a bunk with Midew Lisa (now "Lisa O'Deavis") and Cloran (now "Roche Mongan").  Life isn't looking too grand for ol' Hosty.

After "a goodnight's rave," though, Hosty "was not the same man."  Rejuvenated (like all the other heroes of the Wake who undergo a type of resurrection after a fall has brought them to death's door), he makes breakfast for everyone ("bakenbeggfuss"), and he and his crew then travel across Dublin.  Much like horse racing lingo was sprinkled throughout the previous passage, language related to music and musical instruments now begins to appear.  Hosty and his two associates cross "Ebblin's chilled hamlet" (the HCE initials again) "to the thrummings of a crewth fiddle."  Along their way, this music is heard by the the "halfpast atsweeeep" (and better off) Dubliners who are resting, not in shared bunks, but in "flavory fraiseberry beds" "in brick homes of their own."  Along the way, the trio stops by a pawn shop "for the prothetic purpose of redeeming the songster's truly admirable false teeth," and then they start hitting the pubs.  The "trio of whackfolthediddlers" begin to add more members to their merry band, and they eventually leave a pub having composed "a wouldbe ballad" of "the vilest bodeyer but most attractionable avatar the world has ever had to explain for."  

With this, we're prepped to hear more about what has to be a ballad of HCE.  It will be interesting to hear the ultimate lyrical result of this chain of gossiping.