CHAPTER XVI.

ACTIVE VERBS GOVERN THE OBJECTIVE CASE.

[Illustration: ACTIVE·VERBS ·GOVERN· THE·OBJECTIVE·CASE]

“And now, gentlemen,” said Judge Grammar, when next they were assembled. “But what is the matter, Dr. Verb? What is this about?” he asked, interrupting himself, for Dr. Verb had gone down on one knee before the Judge, and was holding out a paper to him.

“A petition, your lordship,” said Dr. Verb, solemnly; “I beg for justice. No, Preposition, it is of no use to try to hold me back, and to whisper that his lordship will be very angry. You have had your rights given you, and I am going to claim mine. My lord, I beg for the right of an extra mark whenever any word of mine governs a noun or pronoun in the Objective Case.”

At the words “Objective Case,” every one in the court held his breath, expecting the Judge to burst into a rage; and certainly a sudden flush did overspread his face, and rise to the very roots of his wig. For a moment he sat silent with compressed lips, then lifting his head haughtily, he said:--

“Do not apologise, Dr. Verb; I forgive you; but on one condition--that you show clearly and at once how to discover an Objective Case that is governed by a verb.”

“Certainly, my lord,” said Dr. Verb, joyfully; “it is the easiest thing in the world. Just as you have to ask the question, ‘who?’ or ‘what?’ _before_ the verb, to find out the Nominative Case, so you must ask the question, ‘whom?’ or ‘what?’ _after_ the verb, to find the Objective Case. For the nominative tells you who did the thing, and the objective tells you to whom the thing was done. Here is an example:--‘Harry kicked the cat.’ You ask, ‘who kicked?’ to find the nominative, and the answer is _Harry_. You ask, ‘Harry kicked what?’ to find the objective, and the answer is, _the cat_. Is that clear?”

“The cat would certainly object,” muttered the Judge; “but I suppose that is not why it is called objective, because if the verb had been _fed_, _cat_ would have been objective all the same. Well, Brother Parsing,” he continued aloud, “did Dr. Verb explain the matter clearly? Could you find out the objective in that way?”

“Certainly, my lord,” answered Serjeant Parsing, readily. “I will give you an example to prove it. ‘I ate my dinner.’ I find the nominative by asking ‘who ate?’ answer: _I_. I find the objective by asking ‘I ate what?’ answer: _dinner_; and dinner is clearly the objective, for it was the object for which I sat down to eat.”

“Must all verbs have an Objective Case after them?” asked the Judge.

“They cannot all govern the objective,” Serjeant Parsing began, when he was interrupted by a solemn voice near him, as Dr. Syntax suddenly rose and said, “Active verbs govern the Objective Case; active verbs govern the Objective Case;” and then sat down again.

“I know what he means by that,” said Dr. Verb. “Active verbs are those whose action passes on to some one or something else, as in the sentence, ‘Harry kicked the cat,’ the action of kicking passed on to the poor cat; and in ‘I ate my dinner,’ the action of eating passed on and consumed the dinner; so _kick_ and _eat_ are both active verbs, and govern an Objective Case.”

“Well, then,” said the Judge, “must all _active_ verbs have an Objective Case?”

“They should have one, my lord, if you want to make the sentence complete. You must give them an _object_ for their activity. Every active boy can do _something_, though it may not be Latin, and the same with every active verb. If it is an active verb you can always put _some one_ or _something_ after it; as to _eat_ something, _drink_ something, _see_ something, _love_ somebody.”

“And if the verb is not active?” asked the Judge.

“Then it usually has a preposition between it and the noun or pronoun after it, as, ‘I think _of_ you.’ And the preposition gets all the honour and glory of governing the Objective Case, and gets an extra mark besides.”

“Well,” said the Judge, “you have explained it pretty clearly. I suppose I must allow you an extra mark for every verb that governs an Objective Case.”

“But, please, my lord,” said Mr. Noun, coming forward, “I suppose that Pronoun and I are not to lose a mark for every word of ours that is governed by a verb. That would be very hard.”

“No, no,” said the Judge. “There is no dishonour in being governed by an active verb; it is only when you allow yourselves to be governed by a little mite like Preposition, that you are to lose a mark.”

“Allow ourselves to be governed,” muttered Mr. Noun. “As if we could help it, when Dr. Syntax has once made the rule.”

“Brother Parsing,” said the Judge, “let us have a sentence to ‘parse,’ as you call it, that we may see clearly how it is done.”

“Certainly, my lord,” said Serjeant Parsing, turning over his papers. “Here is an excellent sentence, or rather, I should say, two sentences, for there are two verbs: ‘Jack suddenly gave a loud cry, for lo! a tiger appeared before him.’ Now let each Part-of-Speech claim the word as I read it. _Jack._”

“Mine,” said Mr. Noun. “_Jack_ is a proper noun.”

“_Suddenly_,” said Serjeant Parsing.

“Certainly _suddenly_ is mine,” said Adverb, smoothly.

“_Gave_,” said Serjeant Parsing.

“_Gave_ is mine,” said Dr. Verb, “and it agrees with its nominative, _Jack_. For ‘who gave?’ _Jack_ gave, so _Jack_ is the nominative; and please, Mr. Noun, what number and person is _Jack_, for _gave_ must be the same?”

“_Jack_ is singular number, of course,” said Mr. Noun, “for there is only one Jack mentioned; and it is third person, for you are talking about him, not _to_ him, and, of course, he is not talking of himself; my words never do that.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Verb, “then _Jack_ is third person singular, is he? then _gave_ is third person singular, too; and it is an active verb, and has an Objective Case. ‘Jack gave what?’ a _cry_--_cry_ is the objective, governed by the active verb gave; so an extra mark for me, please Serjeant Parsing.”

“All right,” said the learned Serjeant. “_A_ is the next word.”

“Mine,” said little Article.

“_Loud,_” continued Serjeant Parsing.

“_Loud_ is mine,” said Adjective; “it qualifies cry--tells what sort of a cry he gave.”

“Good,” said Serjeant Parsing; “now, _cry_.”

“Mine,” said Mr. Noun; “a common noun this time, and Objective Case; but it does not lose a mark, as it is governed by an active verb, not by a preposition.”

“_For_,” continued Serjeant Parsing.

“Mine, sir,” said Conjunction; “it joins the sentences. ‘Jack gave a loud cry,’ _for_ ‘lo! a tiger appeared before him.’”

“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.”

The Judge then left the bench, and Serjeant Parsing prepared the following sentences for parsing:--

We took a walk in the garden. I see a bee in your bonnet. The dragon ate a dragon-fly. You never saw a blue rose. Ah! I have a bone in my leg. I will ride behind you on your horse. Tom picked a flower for me. Willy is riding on the rocking-horse. A spider has eight legs.

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