"I don't know for sure," said the Unwiseman, "but I fancy I must be. I know I'm over sixty because I was born seventy-three years ago. Seven hundred is over sixty, and so for the sake of round figures I have selected that age. It's rather a wonderful age, don't you think so?"
"It certainly is," said the new doll.
"But then you are a wonderful man," said Mollie.
The Unwiseman drops words out of his vocabulary.
"True," said the Unwiseman, reflectively. "I am wonderful. Sometimes I spend the whole night full of wonder that I should be so wonderful. I know so much. Why, I can read French. I can't understand it, but I can read it quite as well as I can English. I can't read English very well, of course; but then I only went to school one day and that happened to be a holiday; so I didn't learn how to do anything but take a day off. But we are getting away from my resolutions. I want to tell you some more of them. I have thought it all over, and I am determined that all through the year I shall eat only three meals a day with five nibbles between times. I'm going to give up water-melons, which I never eat, and when I converse with anybody I have solemnly promised myself never to make use of such words as assafœdita, peristyle, or cosmopolis. That last resolution is a great sacrifice for me because I am very fond of long words. They sound so learned; but I shall be firm. Assafœdita, peristyle, and cosmopolis until next year dawns shall be dead to me. I may take them on again next year; but if I do, I shall drop Mulligatawney, Portuguese, and pollywog from my vocabulary. I may even go so far as to drop vocabulary, although it is a word for which I have a strong affection. I am so attached to vocabulary as a word that I find myself murmuring it to myself in the dead of night."
"What does it mean?" asked the new doll.
"Vocabulary?" cried the Unwiseman. "Vocabulary? Don't you know what a vocabulary is?"
"I know," said Whistlebinkie. "It's an animal with an hump on its back."