He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin, They fitted with never a wrinkle, his boots were up to the thigh. And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. Every day I can’t wait for the doctors and nurses to leave me alone so I can learn a new verse from Patricia and find out what’s happen- ing  to the highwayman and the landlord’s red-lipped daughter. I love the poem because it’s exciting and almost as good as my two lines of Shakespeare.The redcoats are after the highwayman because they know he told her, I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way. I’d love to do that myself, come by moonlight for Patricia in the next room not giving a fiddler’s fart though hell should bar the way. She’s ready to read the last few verses when in comes the nurse from Kerry shouting at her, shouting at me, I told ye there was to be no talk- ing between rooms. Dipthteria is never allowed to talk to typhoid and visa versa. I warned ye.And she calls out, Seamus, take this one.Take the by. Sister Rita said one more word out of him and upstairs with him. We gave ye a warning to stop the blathering but ye wouldn’t.Take the by, Seamus, take him. Ah, now, nurse, sure isn’t he harmless. ’Tis only a bit o’ poetry. Take that by, Seamus, take him at once. He bends over me and whispers,Ah, God, I’m sorry, Frankie. Here’s your English history book. He slips the book under my shirt and lifts me from the bed. He whispers that I’m a feather. I try to see Patricia when we pass through her room but all I can make out is a blur of dark head on a pillow. Sister Rita stops us in the hall to tell me I’m a great disappointment to her, that she expected me to be a good boy after what God had done for me, after all the prayers said by hundreds of boys at the Confrater- nity, after all the care from the nuns and nurses of the Fever Hospital, after the way they let my mother and father in to see me, a thing rarely allowed, and this is how I repaid them lying in the bed reciting silly poetry back and forth with Patricia Madigan knowing very well there was a ban on all talk between typhoid and diphtheria. She says I’ll have 197