Seamus wipes his sleeve across his face and sniffles. He says,There was no call at all to shift you up here away from Patricia when you didn’t even know what happened to the highwayman and Bess. ’Tis a very sad story and when I said it to my wife she wouldn’t stop crying the whole night till we went to bed. She said there was no call for them redcoats to shoot that highwayman, they are responsible for half the troubles of the world and they never had any pity on the Irish, either. Now if you want to know any more poems, Frankie, tell me and I’ll get them from the pub and bring ’em back in my head. The girl with the blue dress who’s not right in the head suddenly says one day,Would you like a book for to read? and she brings me The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss by E. Phillips Oppenheim, which is all about an Englishman who is fed up and doesn’t know what to do with himself every day even though he’s so rich he can’t count his money. His manservant brings him the morning paper the tea the egg the toast and marmalade and he says,Take it away, life is empty. He can’t read his paper, he can’t eat his egg, and he pines away. His doctor tells him go and live among the poor in the East End of London and he’ll learn to love life,which he does and falls in love with a girl who is poor but hon- est and very intelligent and they get married and move into his house in the West End which is the rich part because it’s easier to help the poor and not be fed up when you’re nice and comfortable. Seamus likes me to tell him what I’m reading. He says that story about Mr. Ernest Bliss is a made-up story because no one in his right mind would have to go to a doctor over having too much money and not eating his egg though you never know. It might be like that in En- gland.You’d never find the likes of that in Ireland. If you didn’t eat your egg here you’d be carted off to the lunatic asylum or reported to the bishop. I can’t wait to go home and tell Malachy about this man who won’t eat his egg. Malachy will fall down on the floor laughing because such a thing could never happen. He’ll say I’m making it up but when I tell him this story is about an Englishman he’ll understand. I can’t tell the girl in the blue dress that this story was silly because she might have a fit. She says if you’re finished with that book I’ll bring you another one because there’s a whole box of books left behind by patients from the old days. She brings me a book called Tom Brown’s School-Days, which is hard to read, and no end of books by P. G.Wode- 201