"I do not understand. But it would seem that all of this is not being treated with due seriousness."
Johnson said, "Don't try to figure us out down here, not this time. We discussed that, Zeke. Society and the individual here is too complex. Specialists here, psychologists, trying to figure that out about themselves are running into difficulty. Just take it as easy as you can and don't get too curious. We'll get you out somewhere where you won't be bothered much, and you can study at your leisure. Remember, you only have six months of this, then you'll be on your way home to Mars."
Zeke said, "Yes. Martian culture must have been complex like this once, but that was very long ago. It seems to frighten me a bit. This—what you call laughter. There seems no analogy for it in my own language or culture. Why is it directed in such volume specifically at me? I mean as a sign of appreciation and like, why is so little of it going on between two or more of your own kind? I do not—"
"You know the meaning of tragedy, sadness, bereavement. We have an opposite. Laughter. You make people very happy, Zeke. You make them enjoy themselves very much."
Zeke thought about this.
Johnson forced a laugh. "You see you shouldn't try to figure it out! Just make your visit here as enjoyable as possible. It won't be long before you'll be on your way back home—"
"All right," Zeke said. "I want to study here. I want to take back to Mars an understanding of humans."
"If you take that back you'll take back more than anyone I ever heard of has to give," muttered Johnson.
The immediately subsequent events were too incredible and fast-paced for Johnson to cope with with any degree of effectiveness. With Zeke, he was swirled away in a mad maelstrom of activity. He went with Zeke on a crazy toboggan ride that gained momentum all the way toward an end Johnson was horrified to imagine.
The newspapers and television and news-reel cameras started the toboggan going. They started the whole world laughing at Zeke. It was too big a novelty to be ignored by American advertisers, or by any other agencies standing to profit from the greatest novelty in history. Zeke seemed to have all the qualities of all the greatest clowns in the history of clowndom, plus unique characteristics of his own which in turn seemed to bring out something else in the misty realms of human psychology where so much was suspected but of which so little was known.