“I am obliged to do so sometimes,” said Mr. Adjective, rather sulkily. “I will not have my words used before a pronoun, as they are before a noun. You can say:—
I am right,
And you are wrong;
It is late,
And we are strong.
But you must not say: right I, wrong you, late it, or strong we.”
“I should think not,” said Serjeant Parsing, laughing. “Then we are to understand that adjectives are used to qualify nouns and pronouns, and that they may be used before a noun or after it, but not before a pronoun.”
“Quite right, so far,” said Mr. Adjective; “but I can do other things besides qualifying nouns.”
“What can you do?”
“I can tell how many there are of the thing the noun names, one, two, three, four, and so on. And whether the thing is the first, second, third, or fourth, and so on. And whether there are some things, many things, few things, more things, no things.”