“Badly!” the Viscount Verb heaved. “We are in crisis. Many of my irregular verbs have been dismembered.”
“Stop whining,” the Crown Noun ordered. “Only three hundred or so of your verbs are irregular. Most of you are regular—hardly a crisis.”
The Viscount Verb had begun pacing. He was tracing a zigzag pattern across the room and back. “The regular verbs are in crisis too. The suffixes -Ed and -En are injured. They are Tensemongers. Without them, we cannot form the past tense or past participles in print. As it is, since the suffixes went on the go-slow, we have had problems forming tenses. We are a mess—a mess, I tell you. If the other words get wind of this … You have to do something! The Tensemongers are the most important suffixes. I need them.”
