“It is,” cried Adjective, angrily; “I tell you it is.”
“Silence!” said the Judge, sternly. “Brother Parsing, be kind enough to question both Adjective and Pronoun, that we may know the cause of this quarrel, and hear what each has to say for himself.”
“Certainly, my lord,” answered Serjeant Parsing. “Adjective, what words do you claim?”
“My, thy, his, her, its, our, your, and their,” replied Adjective.
“Well, Mr. Pronoun, tell us how you make them out to be yours.”
“Nothing is easier,” answered Pronoun. “These words stand instead of nouns, and therefore they must be pronouns. When you say ‘my thumb,’ my lord, you mean Judge Grammar’s thumb, so my stands instead of the noun Judge Grammar. And when you say, ‘Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep,’ you mean little Bo-peep’s sheep, therefore her stands instead of little Bo-peep. So my and her are clearly pronouns; and thy, his, its, our, your, their, are used in just the same way, and therefore must be pronouns too.”
“It would seem so,” said the Judge. “What has Mr. Adjective to say to that?”
“I will soon tell you, my lord,” replied Adjective. “You will, of course, allow that an adjective is a word that may be used before a noun, to tell something about the thing that the noun names. It has been said that if you can put thing or things after a word, that word (not counting a or the, of course) is sure to be an adjective; as, a good thing, a bad thing, large things, little things, and so on. Well, I am sure you can say my thing, thy thing, his thing, her thing, its thing, our thing, your thing, and their thing. Therefore, my, thy, his, her, its, our, your, and their, must be adjectives.”
“H’m! It is all very well to say must,” remarked the Judge, “but then Pronoun says they must be pronouns. Are there any more of your words, Mr. Pronoun, that Adjective claims in the same way?”
“My lord,” answered Pronoun, “he claims all the words of mine that may be used before a noun. This, that, these, and those, for instance.”