un's the name of anything
As school or garden, hoop or swing.

_Guardian_: Very good, go on.

_4th Prince_:

Adjectives tell the kind of noun
As strong or pretty, white or brown.

_5th Prince_:

Conjunctions join the nouns together
As men and children, wind or weather.

_Guardian_: It will be very useful to you to have
that so well grafted in your mind.... What
noise is that outside?

_Servant_: It is some strolling people.

_1st Prince_: Oh, Guardian, let them come in.
We will do our work all the better if we have some
amusement now.

_Guardian_: Maybe so. I am well pleased when
amusements come to our door, that you can see
without going outside the walls.

_(A Jester enters in very ragged green clothes
and broken shoes.)_

But this is a very ragged looking man. Do you
know anything about him, Gillie?

_Servant_: I seen him one time before.... At
the time of the earthquake out in Foreign. A mad
jester he was. A tramp class of a man. _(To Jester.)_
Where is it you stop?

_Jester_: Where do I stop? Where would I be
but everywhere, like the bad weather. I stop in
no place, but going through the whole roads of
the world.

_Guardian_: What brought you in here?

_Jester_: Hearing questions going on, and answers.
I am well able to give help in that. It's
not long since I was giving instruction to the sons
of the King of Babylon. Here now is a question.
How many ladders would it take to reach to the
moon?

_1st Prince_: It should be a great many.

_2nd Prince_: I give it up.

_Jester_: One ...if it is long enough! Which
is it easier to spell, ducks or geese?

_3rd Prince_: Ducks I suppose because it's shorter.

_Jester_: Not at all but geese. Do you know
why? Because it is spelled with _ees_. Tell me
now, can you spell pup backwards?

_4th Prince_: P-u-p....

_Jester_: Not at all.

_4th Prince_: But it is.

_Jester_: No, that is pup straight forwards....
Can you run back and forwards at the same time?

_4th Prince_: Answer it yourself so.

_Jester_: You would be as wise as myself then.
But I'll show you some tricks. Look at these
three straws on my hand. Will I be able to blow
two of them away, and the other to stay in its place?

_5th Prince_: They would all blow away.

_Jester_: Look now. Puff! (_He has put his
finger on the middle one_.) Now is it possible?

_5th Prince_: It is easy when you know the way.

_Jester_: That is so with all knowledge. Can you
wag on