as nothing more formidable than "Winky!"

"You might have known he wouldn't hurt you, Teresa," he said. "Any one
with that name would be light as a fly and awf'ly gentle--a regular dicky
sort of chap!"

"But he'd have pincers," she protested, "or he couldn't pull the hairs
out. Like an earwig he'd be. Ugh!"

"Not Winky! Never!" he explained scornfully, jealous of his offspring's
reputation. "He'd do it with his rummy little fingers."

"Then his fingers would have claws at the ends!" she insisted; for no
amount of explanation could persuade her that a person named Winky could
be nice and gentle, even though he were "quicker than a second." She
added that his death rejoiced her.

"But I can easily make another--such a nippy little beggar, and twice as
hoppy as the first. Only I won't do it," he added magnanimously, "because
it frightens you."

For to name with him was to create. He had only to run out some distance
into his big mental prairie, call aloud a name in a certain commanding
way, and instantly its owner would run up to claim it. Names described
souls. To learn the name of a thing or person was to know all about them
and make them subservient to his will; and "Winky" could only have been a
very soft and furry little person, swift as a shadow, nimble as a
mouse--just the sort of fellow who _would_ make a conical cap out of a
girl's fluffy hair ... and love the mischief of doing it.

And so with all things: names were vital and important. To address beings
by their intimate first names, beings of the opposite sex especially, was
a miniature sacrament; and the story of that premature audacity of Elsa
with Lohengrin never failed to touch his sense of awe. "What's in a
name?" for him, was a significant question--a question of life or death.
For to mispronounce a name was a bad blunder, but to name it wrongly was
to miss it altogether. Such a thing had no real life, or at best a
vitality that would soon fade. Adam knew that! And he pondered much in
his childhood over the difficulty Adam must have had "discovering" the
correct appellations for some of the queerer animals....

As he grew older, of course, all this faded a good deal, but he never
quite lost the sense of reality in names--the significance of a true
name, the absurdity of a false one, the cruelty of mispronunciation. One
day in the far future, he knew, some wonderful girl would come into his
life, singing her own true name like music, her whole pers