"'This,' I replied, 'is not humorous; it is only a practical joke; it is no more than incipient humour; there is no joke in it but only mischief, for to interfere with work is the humour of a babe or a monkey. You are a thoroughly serious person, and you will not make a joke in ten eternities; that also is in your karma.'
"At these words his eyes brooded on me darkly, and an expression of real malignancy came on his face: he stamped at me from the triangles and hissed with rage.
"'I'll show you something else,' said he, 'and if it doesn't make you laugh it will make everybody else who hears about it laugh for an age.'
"I saw that he was meditating a personal evil to me, but I was powerless, for I could not let go my grip on the substance.
"He lifted his hands against me then, but, at the moment, there came a sound, so low, so deep, it could scarcely be heard, and with equal strong intensity the sound pervaded all the spaces and brooded in every point and atom with its thrilling breath—we were about to shape to the whirlwind.
"The man's hands fell, and he stared at me.
"'Oh!' said he, and he said 'Oh' three times in a whisper.
"The sound was the beginning of the second syllable.
"'I thought I had time,' he gasped: 'my calculations were wrong.'
"'The joke is against you,' said I to the man.