“But you asked ‘what?’ not ‘who?’ there, Brother Parsing,” remarked the Judge.
“Because way is a thing, not a person, my lord. When we are talking of a thing, then we ask ‘what?’ instead of ‘who?’ If you said ‘the pudding is boiling in the pot,’ I should say ‘what is boiling?’ not ‘who is boiling?’ for I should hope you would not be boiling a person in a pot, unless you were the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.”
“Fi! fo! fum!” said Interjection, standing on his head, and clapping his heels together.
“Silence, sir!” cried the Judge. “Brother Parsing, please not to talk about giants till we have done with the Nominative Case. Has any gentleman anything more to explain about it?”
“Please, my lord,” said Pronoun, “Dr. Verb complains that he has to agree with me when I am in the Nominative Case. But he has to agree with Mr. Noun just as much. It is no matter what part of speech stands as the Nominative in a sentence, Dr. Verb must agree with it; so he need not grumble at me more than at any one else.”
“I am not grumbling at you——,” Dr. Verb began.
“Wait a minute, Dr. Verb,” interrupted the Judge; “let us first fully understand this case. You say there is a verb in every sentence?”
“Certainly, my lord,” said Verb.
“And there is a Nominative in every sentence?”
“Exactly so, my lord,” answered Serjeant Parsing.