"Pray, Miss Preposition, what are these?" asked Nelly, as she took up some small labels from that lady's stall, with from, by, of, and such names upon them.
"They are to show in what case Noun's words are to be packed," replied Preposition politely. "You may remark yonder boxes with Nominative, Possessive, and such names painted upon them; it is my business to label my sister's goods, that they may be packed according to rule."
"It must be stupid work to deal in nothing but tickets!" exclaimed Dick; "if I were a Part of Speech, I'd be Noun rather than Preposition! And what has Conjunction to sell?"
"Only little balls of string to tie bundles of words together, such as and, either, or; and scissors to divide the bundles, such as neither, nor, notwithstanding."
"Oh, come here, come here!" cried Matty eagerly; "there's nothing amusing to look at on the counters of Conjunction or Preposition, but Interjection has something very funny! Look at these gutta-percha balls shaped like faces, some showing pleasure—some horror—some surprise; just give them a little squeeze, and hear how you make them squeak!"
Lubin pressed one of the heads between his fat fingers, and oh! ah! squeaked the red lips.
"I'll try one!" cried Dick, catching up another; "it's so like Matty's friend, Miss Folly, that I'm sure that she sat for her likeness!" He thumped it down on the counter, and out came a shrill "lack-a-day!"
"I think," laughed Nelly, "that Interjection sells the funniest words of all!"
"And the ones that we could best do without," said Dick scornfully, throwing down the lack-a-day ball.
The children did not leave the Grammar Bazaar empty-handed. I must just remark that Matty loaded herself most with words from the stall of Adjective, choosing most of them from the Superlative row; and that Lubin, notwithstanding the neat labels of Miss Preposition, never knew how to put one of the words which he got from Noun or Pronoun into its own proper case.