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Officer Short Shrift is the Dictionopolan cop who is very short. He doubles as a judge and a jailer. He is pretty confident that he has "never seen anyone so guilty", and decides that everybody's "guilty" as soon as he sees them. He is not very fair or logical. His examination of Milo is brief, and he keeps cutting the boy off so that he can make up a new crime of which Milo can be guilty. For ...
Officer Shrift. Officer Shrift is the only police officer (and the entire police force) in Dictionopolis. And in addition to being the police force, he’s also the judge and the jailer in town. He’s about two feet tall and four feet wide, and as he walks through Dictionopolis he continuously mutters that the people around him are guilty.
- Milo. The main character, Milo is a little boy who goes through all of his days in a state of horrible boredom. This routine changes when Milo takes a trip through the mysterious make-believe tollbooth that appears in his bedroom one day.
- Tock. Milo's friend Tock is a literally a "watchdog." A giant clock makes up part of his body, and he constantly makes ticking noises. He patrols the Doldrums and stops people from wasting time.
- The Humbug. The Humbug is an insect who lives only to flatter people—especially himself. The Humbug is ignorant about everything from math to geography and proves himself the fool by his constant attempts to say intelligent things.
- King Azaz. King Azaz is ruler of the realm of letters and words. Azaz and his brother argue over which is more important—numbers or letters, and they banish the princesses Rhyme and Reason.
Amid the cacophony the police force arrives – a two-foot-tall officer named Officer Shrift. He blows his whistle loudly and yells red-faced that everyone is guilty. He walks around and peers suspiciously at people, making notes in his little book. He tells the flustered Humbug he looks suspicious.
- Norton Juster
- Milo. The protagonist of the novel, Milo is a little boy who, when readers first meet him, is chronically bored. He doesn’t see the point in doing anything, whether that’s learning in school or playing with… read analysis of Milo.
- Tock. Tock is the first real friend that Milo meets in the Lands Beyond. Tock is a watchdog, which means he’s a massive dog whose body is a ticking alarm clock.
- The Humbug. The Humbug is Milo’s second companion along his journey to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason. He’s a giant beetle-like bug dressed smartly in a coat, hat, pants, and spats.
- King Azaz the Unabridged. Azaz is the king of Dictionopolis and the Mathemagician’s brother. He’s a huge man with a long beard, and he wears robes embroidered with the alphabet.
Chapter 4. Confusion in the Market Place. The Phantom Tollbooth: Chapter 5. Short Shrift Summary & Analysis. Chapter 6. Faintly Macabre’s Story. Since all the words in the market have been mixed up, a salesman shouts “Done what you’ve looked.”. Nobody can say anything understandable until the stalls are put back up.
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The Phantom Tollbooth. The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's fantasy adventure novel written by Norton Juster, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, first published in 1961. The story follows a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth that transports him to the once prosperous, but now troubled, Kingdom of Wisdom.
