"Only twenty-six letters! Dear me, why millions of people are writing fresh letters every day, and he knows them all directly he sees them! I hope you will go to school some day and learn differently from that! Only twenty-six letters," repeated the Zankiwank in wonderment, "only twenty-six letters." Then he cried suddenly, "How convenient it would be if everybody was his own Dictionary!"
"That is impossible. One cannot be a book."
"Oh yes, nothing simpler. Let everybody choose his own words and give his own meaning to them!"
"What use would that be?" asked Willie.
"None whatever, because if you always had your own meaning you would not want anybody else to be meaning anything! What a lot of trouble that would save! I'll ask the Jackarandajam to make one for me—why, here he is!"
The children recognised the Jackarandajam immediately and shook hands with him.
"I am so glad to see you all. I have just been suffering from a most severe attack of Inspiration."
"How very inexplicable—I beg your pardon," moaned the Zankiwank. "It is a little difficult, but it is, I believe, a strictly proper word—though I do not pretend to know its meaning."