Serjeant Parsing turned again to Mr. Noun, and asked for another word.
“Hippopotamus,” answered Mr. Noun. Mr. Adjective gave fat.
“Now, little Article, give me a,” said Serjeant Parsing, “and I will put them together. ‘Hippopotamus fat a;’ ‘a fat hippopotamus;’ ‘a hippopotamus fat.’ H’m! it sounds odd.”
“‘A fat hippopotamus’ does not sound wrong,” put in Mr. Noun.
“Not wrong, of course,” answered Dr. Verb. “You may mention a fat hippopotamus, if you like, or any other animal, but unless you tell something about it you have not made a sentence. Say that it is, or has, or did something, if you want to make a sentence; like ‘a fat hippopotamus is here;’ or ‘a hippopotamus has a fat body;’ or, ‘a hippopotamus ate me up,’ or, ‘swam away,’ or something of that sort. Then you will have some famous sentences, but you will have had to use verbs to make them, for is, has, ate, swam, are all verbs, for they are all words that speak of being, having, or doing.”
“How can we always find out if a word is a verb?” asked Serjeant Parsing.
“It is sure to be a verb if you can put a little to before it,” answered Dr. Verb; “to be, to have, to do, to eat, to drink, to swim, to fly, to speak, to think, to run, to dance, to play, to sing, to sleep, to wake, to laugh, to cry, to call, to fall;” and Dr. Verb stopped, quite out of breath.
“That sounds very easy,” said Serjeant Parsing. “Let me try it with the words that you said were verbs; to is, to has, to ate, to swam.”
“Stop, stop,” cried Dr. Verb; “not like that. You must not put to before any part of the verb you like. Is is part of the verb to be, has is part of the verb to have.”
“Is, part of the verb to be?” said Serjeant Parsing. “What do you mean? why, the two words have not a single letter alike.”