"Could not restore Namby to where he was at."
"Yes. Here's a new bit of Mother Goose I've dashed off:
"Namby Pamby sat on the fence,
Namby Pamby tumbled from thence.
Half the queen's donkeys, her dog, and her cat,
Could not restore Namby to where he was at."
"Why!" cried Mollie. "You can't write that. It's nothing but Humpty Dumpty all over again."
"You're all wrong there," retorted the Unwiseman. "And I can prove it. You say that I can't write that. Well, I have written it, which proves that I can. As for its being Humpty Dumpty all over again, that's plain nonsense. Namby Pamby is not Humpty Dumpty. Namby Pamby begins with an N and a P, while Humpty Dumpty begins with H and D. Then, again, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. My hero sat on a fence. Humpty Dumpty fell. Namby Pamby tumbled—and so it goes all through the poem. Mine is entirely different. Besides, it's a hysterical episode, and I've got just as much right to make poems about hystery as Mother Goose had."
"Maybe you're right," said Mollie. "But if I were you, I wouldn't write things that are too much like what other people have written."
"I don't see why," said the Unwiseman, impatiently. "If Peter Smith writes a poem that everybody likes and buys, I want to write something as much like what Peter Smith has made a fortune out of as Peter Smith has. That's the point. But we won't quarrel about it. Girls don't know much about business, and men do. I'm a man and you're only a girl."
"Well, I think Mollie's right," put in Whistlebinkie.