Professor Pettifog collected words. He didn't talk very much because he was afraid that if he used any of his words, he would lose them. As a matter of fact, he also collected phrases, an occasional sentence, and he had been known to collect a whole paragraph when he came upon an especially clever one.
First he put them in a box, and then a desk, and a closet, and a room, until, finally, it took his whole house to hold his word collection.
Words like 'warm', 'lovely', 'beautiful', and 'kind' were his favorites because they were 'gentle', 'soft', 'fuzzy', and 'happy' kinds of words. He also enjoyed words like 'hopping', 'jumping', 'exciting' and 'active', but he had to be careful with them because they tended to get in trouble around the house, sometimes even breaking things as they 'bounced' around!
Professor Pettifog's phrases were silly little things. They didn't take up much room and they often didn't make much sense.
What exactly is a 'pigeon hole'? Pigeons don't make holes. . .or live in them, either. Has anyone ever heard a 'wedding band' play or a 'wedding ring' ring? Or seen a 'chest of drawers'? And a 'head of lettuce or cabbage' is downright silly. But Professor Pettifog kept them all because occasionally, very occasionally, they made him smile.
Now, he was always very careful to keep words like 'scary', 'horrible', 'frightening', 'fearful', 'terrible', and 'nasty' locked into one small closet. Actually, he didn't want to collect them at all, but they sneaked into his collection when he wasn't looking.
One rainy day, he had to go into that closet for his raincoat, and forgot to lock the door. One by one, the words slipped out just the way they had slipped in in the first place. They lumped themselves together in one humungously big 'thing', and lurched and lurked around the house, bumping and thumping, and snuffling and snorting.
When Professor Pettifog got home that afternoon and saw what had happened, he was very upset, indeed!
"Get back in the closet!" he shouted, using up five words from his collection, but the humongous 'thing' just giggled and sniggled, and driveled and drooled.
"Begone, I say!" Professor Pettifog yelled, using up three more words. The 'thing' only scowled and growled, and prowled and howled.
"This is terrible!" the Professor cried, wringing his hands helplessly. Then, he noticed that the 'terrible' part of the 'thing' had disappeared.
"This is horrible and frightening!" he exclaimed, and the 'horrible' and 'frightening' part disappeared, making the 'thing' much smaller.
"It is fearful, scary, and nasty!" he said gleefully, and the entire 'thing' disappeared.
From then on, whenever Professor Pettifog happened across some awful word, he simply said it out loud once and it was gone, all used up, just like that! And then he discovered that the nice, pleasant, happy words can be used over and over again, because, like rabbits, they tend to multiply . . .
Which is another story, entirely!
The End
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