Balbulous

• L balbus: stammering → indicative of HCE's guilt

• L balbulus: stammering, stuttering

• bibulous: addicted to strong drink

• fabulous:

• Balbus: a Roman who built a wall → A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ch 1: "And behind the door of one of the closets there was a drawing in red pencil of a bearded man in a Roman dress with a brick in each hand and underneath was the name of the drawing: Balbus was building a wall." → Cicero, Letters to Atticus XII:2 (criticizing his fellow Romans for wasting time when they should be attending to the business of state): "Balbus is building. For what does he care?"

• St Babylas: Bishop of Antioch 237-250; he shut the church-doors against the Roman emperor Decius, for which he was imprisoned and martyred

• alb: a white clerical vestment → one of HCE’s 7 items of clothing?