"And how can that be?" says Jurgen.

"You are offensive," the bug replied, "because this page has a sword
which I choose to say is not a sword. You are lewd because that page
has a lance which I prefer to think is not a lance. You are
lascivious because yonder page has a staff which I elect to declare
is not a staff. And finally, you are indecent for reasons of which a
description would be objectionable to me, and which therefore I must
decline to reveal to anybody."

"Well, that sounds logical," says Jurgen, "but still, at the same
time, it would be no worse for an admixture of common-sense. For you
gentlemen can see for yourselves, by considering these pages fairly
and as a whole, that these pages bear a sword and a lance and a
staff, and nothing else whatever; and you will deduce, I hope, that
all the lewdness is in the insectival mind of him who itches to be
calling these things by other names."

The judges said nothing as yet. But they that guarded Jurgen, and
all the other Philistines, stood to this side and to that side with
their eyes shut tight, and all these said: "We decline to look at
the pages fairly and as a whole, because to look might seem to imply
a doubt of what the tumblebug has decreed. Besides, as long as the
tumblebug has reasons which he declines to reveal, his reasons stay
unanswerable, and you are plainly a prurient rascal who are making
trouble for yourself."

"To the contrary," says Jurgen, "I am a poet, and I make
literature."