"Again he poured on me the great sound until I rocked to and fro like a bush in the wind; but he could not loose my grip, for I was a part of the word.
"'Why are you doing this?' I asked him.
"'I'll tell you that,' he replied.
"'I am two things, and I am great in each of these two things. I am a great magician, and I am a great humourist. Now, it is very easy to prove that one is a magician, for one has only to do things and then people are astonished; they are filled with fear and wonder; they fall down and worship and call one god and master. But it is not so easy to be a humourist, because in that case it is necessary to make people laugh. If a man is to be a magician it is necessary, if his art is to be appreciated, that the people around him be fools. If a person desires to be a humourist it is necessary that the people around him shall be at least as wise as he is, otherwise his humour will not be comprehended. You see my predicament! and it is a cruel one, for I cannot forego either of these ambitions—they are my karma. Laughter is purely an intellectual quality, and in my planet I have no intellectual equals: my jokes can only be enjoyed by myself, and it is of the essence of humour that one share it, or it turns to ill-health and cynicism and mental sourness. My humour cannot be shared with the people of my planet, for they are all half a round beneath me—they can never see the joke, they only see consequences, and these blind them to the rich drollery of any affair, and render me discontented and angry. My humour is too great for them, for it is not terrestrial but cosmic; it can only be appreciated by the gods, therefore, I have come out here to seek my peers and to have at least one hearty laugh with them.'
"'One must laugh,' he continued, 'for laughter is the health of the mind, and I have not laughed for a crore of seasons.'
"Thereupon he took up the syllable and intoned its flooding sound so that the matter beneath my hands strained against me almost unbearably.
"I turned my head and stared at the little man as he laughed happily to himself and scraped his chin.
"'You are a fool,' said I to that man.
"The smile vanished from his face and a shade of dejection took its place.
"'Is it possible, Regent, that you have no sense of humour!' said he.