Chapter 3: Pages 15-16: Lines 33-38 (124-129)

 Yet, feeling it his Duty to set them at Ease, he begins, "Well. There's this Jesuit, this Corsican, and this Chinaman, and they're all riding in a greeat Cooach, going up to Bath...? and the fourth Passenger is a very proper Englishwoman, who keeps giving them these scandaliz'd Glances...? Finally, able to bear it no longer, the Corsican, being the most hot-headed of the three, bursts out, and here I hope You will excuse my Corsican Accent, he says, "'Ey! Lady! Whatta Ye lookin' ah'?" And she says,— "

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Lines 124-129 Vulgarized:
Sensing things might be getting a little tense between them after Mason's innocent Pitmatic accent mockery followed by Dixon's less-than-innocent London accent mockery, Dixon tries to ease the tension with a bawdy joke. "A Jesuit, an Italian, and a Chinese guy are sharing a coach up to Bath. Sharing the coach with them is an English lady, prim and proper. The woman keeps glancing at the men in a seemingly scandalous way. The Italian, being hot-headed as you know all Italians are, pipes up and says, "Mama mia! Whatta ya lookin' at?! Gabagool!" She replies...".

Subtext:
If I knew the punchline to this joke, maybe I'd understand the subtext! Dixon doesn't get to finish the joke because, well, look at him making fun of another accent! He's trying to ease the tension caused by doing accents by doing another accent! I think maybe this guy is a rube! Hopefully, Pynchon being Pynchon, there will be a moment later in the novel where a Jesuit, Corsican, and Chinaman all wind up in the same small space with a proper Englishwoman and we get the punchline played out as actual plot.

I suppose this scene also helps the reader to close the distance between the late 1900s and the late 1700s by having Dixon tell a joke with a trope familiar to modern readers. "Why look at that!" exclaims the modern reader. "We're just like these old timey fellas! They tell jokes full of stereotypes and blatant racism too! Just like my favorite joke to tell at office parties about the Rabbi and the Priest and the Cannibal Witch Doctor! Ah ha ha ha! Nobody thinks poorly of me when I tell that humdinger! The life of the party, I am!"