“No, I hear nobody,” she announced.
“But it’s most extraordinary!” he cried, his voice slurring up and down. “Put on your machine.”
“Put it on?” she retorted. “What for?”
“To see if you can hear it,” he cried.
“Hear what?”
“The laughing. Somebody laughing. It’s most extraordinary.”
She gave her odd little chuckle and handed him her machine. He held it while she opened the lid and attached the wires, putting the band over her head and the receivers at her ears, like a wireless operator. Crumbs of snow fell down the cold darkness. She switched on; little yellow lights in glass tubes shone in the machine. She was connected, she was listening. He stood with his head ducked, his hands shoved down in his overcoat pockets.
Suddenly he lifted his face and gave the weirdest, slightly neighing laugh, uncovering his strong, spaced teeth and arching his black brows, and watching her with queer, gleaming, goatlike eyes.
She seemed a little dismayed.
“There!” he said. “Didn’t you hear it?”