“But I'm afraid it can't be done.""Certainly not; it can't be done," repeated the Humbug."Why not?" asked Milo."Why not indeed?" exclaimed the bug, who seemed equally at home on either side of an argument."Much too difficult," replied the king."Of course," emphasized the bug, "much too difficult.""You could if you really wanted to," insisted Milo."By all means, if you really wanted to, you could," the Humbug agreed."How?" asked Azaz, glaring at the bug."How?" inquired Milo, looking the same way."A simple task," began the Humbug, suddenly wishing he were somewhere else, "for a brave lad with a stout heart, a steadfast dog, and a serviceable small automobile.”

“As the cheering continued, Rhyme leaned forward and touched Milo gently on the shoulder. "They're cheering for you," she said with a smile. "But I could never have done it," he objected, "without everyone else's help." "That may be true," said Reason gravely, "but you had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you *will* do." "That's why," said Azaz, "there was one very important thing about your quest that we couldn't discuss until you returned. "I remember," said Milo eagerly. "Tell me now." "It was impossible," said the king, looking at the Mathemagician. "Completely impossible," said the Mathemagician, looking at the king. "Do you mean----" said the bug, who suddenly felt a bit faint. "Yes, indeed," they repeated together; "but if we'd told you then, you might not have gone---and, as you've discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible." And for the remainder of the ride Milo didn't utter a sound.”

“The Humbug whistled gaily at his work, for he was never as happy as when he had a job which required no thinking at all. After what seemed like days, he had dug a hole scarcely large enough for his thumb. Tock shuffled steadily back and forth with the dropper in his teeth, but the full well was still almost as full as when he began, and Milo's new pile of sand was hardly a pile at all."How very strange," said Milo, without stopping for a moment. "I've been working steadily all this time, and I don't feel the slightest bit tired or hungry. I could go right on the same way forever.""Perhaps you will," the man agreed with a yawn (at least it sounded like a yawn)."Well, I wish I knew how long it was going to take," Milo whispered as the dog went by again."Why not use your magic staff and find out?" replied Tock as clearly as anyone could with an eye dropper in his mouth. Milo took the shiny pencil from his pocket and quickly calculated that, at the rate they were working, it would take each of them eight hundred and thirty-seven years to finish."Pardon me," he said, tugging at the man's sleeve and holding the sheet of figures up for him to see, "but it's going to take eight hundred and thirty-seven years to do these jobs.""Is that so?" replied the man, without even turning around. "Well, you'd better get on with it then.""But it hardly seems worth while," said Milo softly."WORTH WHILE!" the man roared indignantly."All I meant was that perhaps it isn't too important," Milo repeated, trying not to be impolite."Of course it's not important," he snarled angrily. "I wouldn't have asked you to do it if I thought it was important." And now, as he turned to face them, he didn't seem quite so pleasant."Then why bother?" asked Tock, whose alarm suddenly began to ring."Because, my young friends," he muttered sourly, "what could be more important than doing unimportant things? If you stop to do enough of them, you'll never get to where you're going." He punctuated his last remark with a villainous laugh."Then you must -----" gasped Milo."Quite correct!" he shrieked triumphantly. "I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit.”

“But why do only unimportant things?" asked Milo, who suddenly remembered how much time he spent each day doing them."Think of all the trouble it saves," the man explained, and his face looked as if he'd be grinning an evil grin--if he could grin at all. "If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren't for that dreadful magic staff, you'd never know how much time you were wasting.”

“But there's so much to learn," he said, with a thoughtful frown."Yes, that's true," admitted Rhyme; "but it's not just learning things that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters.""That's just what I mean," explained Milo as Tock and the exhausted bug drifted quietly off to sleep. "Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose in learning them at all.""You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way.”

“I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't repeat the past.""Can't repeat the past? he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!”