“Exactly so. Now will you tell me what happiness is?”
“Happiness,” repeated Mr. Noun, getting suddenly very red, for he saw what was coming; “happiness is a noun, it is mine.”
“Oh!” said Serjeant Parsing; “how did you get it?”
“I made it.”
“I joined happy and ness together.”
“H’m!” said Serjeant Parsing. “I will not ask you where you found such a silly word as ness, but happy you said just now belongs to Mr. Adjective, so of course you took it from him.”
Mr. Noun did not answer, but looked down, exceedingly red and uncomfortable.
“My lord,” said Serjeant Parsing to the Judge, “need I say any more. This Mr. Noun, who would have Adjective put in prison for stealing, has been doing the very same thing himself. Happiness, prettiness, silliness, cleverness, and almost all the words that end in ness, are nouns made from adjectives. If Mr. Noun would give them all up, I have no doubt Mr. Adjective would then give up his beautiful, useful, graceful, and other adjectives that are made from nouns.”
“No, no,” said the Judge; “I will have no giving up. When a word is once made it is made for good, and instead of blaming those who take their neighbour’s words to make new ones for themselves, I consider that they are very much to be praised. Critics, untie Mr. Adjective’s hands. Mr. Adjective, I am glad to hear you are so clever in making new words, and I give you full permission to make as many more as you can, by borrowing either from Mr. Noun or from any other Part-of-Speech. Have you any other ending to put on besides ful?”