“Lo! lo! lo! that is mine,” cried little Interjection, before Serjeant Parsing had time to continue.
“A,” called out the Serjeant, without noticing him.
“An article, again,” said little Article.
“Tiger,” continued Serjeant Parsing.
“Mine,” said Mr. Noun; “a common noun, but nominative this time to the verb appeared.”
“You should not tell my words, Mr. Noun,” said Dr. Verb. “Please, sir, appeared is a verb, not active, because it does not say that the tiger appeared to anybody or anything; it appeared before somebody, and that little preposi——”
“Now you’re telling, Dr. Verb,” cried Preposition. “Please, sir, before is mine—a preposition, showing the position of the tiger with regard to poor Jack, and governing him in the Objective Case; so two marks for me, please, sir.”
“One more word,” said Serjeant Parsing; “him.”
“Him is mine,” said Pronoun, sadly; “it is a personal pronoun, third person and singular number, standing instead of the noun Jack; but,” he added, with tears in his eyes, “it is of no use to give me a mark for it, as I shall lose it again on account of the case. Him is the objective case, governed by the preposition before;” and Pronoun turned away with a sob.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Judge Grammar, “you see what the learned Serjeant means by ‘parsing.’ Only let our Schoolroom-shire friends parse a few sentences in the same way, and they will be perfectly prepared for the great trial that is coming on. Brother, pray hand them up a few.” Then pulling out his watch, the Judge continued: “I find, gentlemen, that the present time will soon be past, and we shall be stepping into the future if we go on much longer; therefore I must put off, until the next time we meet, the announcement I was going to make to you to-day.”