"Is he in?"

"Ya.s.suh."

"Tell him member seven-oh-nine is here, with the recruit."

"Ya.s.suh, boss!" said the man. He tapped the _tambourine_, turned and walked out the doorway.

Within moments he was back.

"Dis yere way."

Kinkaid and Biddle accompanied the man up a long, narrow flight of stairs to a small red door and there they stopped. The man with the black face pressed a b.u.t.ton.

From an overhead speaker a voice called: "Why does the fireman wear red suspenders?"

"To keep his pants up," said the _tambourine_ man, flipping a toggle.

"So make the scene."

There was a sharp buzzing sound. The door swung open. Kinkaid and Biddle followed their guide in.

Instinctively, Kinkaid gasped and clutched at Biddle for support. His first impression had been that the room was upside down. He closed his eyes. Slowly, he opened them. The impression remained.

Biddle made a peculiar noise in his throat. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "This is known as a gag."

"A gag?" Kinkaid stared up at what could only be the floor. He saw a couch, a chair, a table, and even a small sleeping dog.

"Exactly. It will be explained." Biddle marched across the ceiling, from which sprouted a long chain topped by an antique light bulb. "Come along."

Taking care to look straight ahead, Kinkaid made his way forward. His employer pressed a second b.u.t.ton and a panel slid back, exposing a second room.

It was hardly a comfort.

Here there were mirrors, stationed along the four walls. As Kinkaid pa.s.sed them, he saw himself turn fat, slim, big-headed, pin-headed, three-faced, and invisible.

"Deposit the can t.i.therwards, ofay," said the man know as Mister Bones, gesturing.

"How's that?" Kinkaid looked at the chair which had been pulled up. "Oh." He sat down. As he sank into the frayed brown cushion, there was a loud, embarra.s.sing noise.

"Yak, yak!" said Mister Bones.

Kinkaid rose, unsteadily. "I think," he said, "that I'd better go."

"Too late," said Biddle.

"_Boo!_"

Kinkaid jumped backward, colliding with a large desk. When equilibrium returned, he foundhimself staring at a figure alongside which the man with the black face seemed absolutely humdrum. This figure reflected a hundred times throughout the room, wore a golden mask and a skin-tight suit of many colors, each color in the shape of a diamond, each diamond a different hue from the other. The figure approached, and as it did so, the tiny bells attached to its ankles and to its wrists and to its high-peaked cap tinkled wildly.

"What goes up the chimney down but not down the chimney up?"

"I don't understand the question," said Kinkaid. "Would you repeat it?"

"No," said the belled figure. Pointing the stick at Biddle: "Tell him."

"An umbrella," said Biddle.

The man with the black face slapped his knees. Peculiar noises issued from his throat. They were, Kinkaid thought, like the noises of the Laff-Tracks on TV; but also not like them.

"Mister Bones," said the belled figure, "it's toodle-oosville, _s'il vous plait_."

The man with the black face tapped his _tambourine_, turned and walked headlong into the wall.

Again Kinkaid felt the strange constriction in his chest. The ends of his mouth curled upwards as the man crashed to the floor, rolled, picked himself up and staggered through the doorway.

"I don't know, Biddle," said the harlequin figure. Kinkaid could feel hot eyes staring upon him from behind the golden mask. "I'm very dubious."

"He smiled," said Biddle, frowning.

"Yes, but that was a yok. We've got to be _so_ careful."

"Of course. I know that. That's why I waited to be sure." Biddle put his arm around Kinkaid's shoulder. "Understand, he's a beginner. And he _was_ amused by the trick cigar."

The bells tinkled. "_Was_ he?"

"He very nearly laughed."

"Well!" Silence. Then, once more, the bells; louder; much louder. The figure reached across the desk. "Good to meet up with ya, podnuh!"

Hesitantly, Kinkaid accepted the hand. There was a loud buzz, followed by a painful tickling sensation on his palm. He jerked away.

The Laff-Track noise again, from Biddle's throat. Listening, Kinkaid was hardly aware of the lava-hot ball gathering and expanding inside him. When it burst, he was as surprised as the others. "That's it!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk. "I don't know what the h.e.l.l all of this is about, but I know one thing--I don't want any part of it. You hear? You people--you're psycho! You know that?

Psycho!"

He strode angrily to the door.

It was locked.

"You see!" said Biddle. "Emotion."

"Yes," said the belled figure. "That's encouraging, though far from conclusive." He gestured.

"Mister Kinkaid, please calm yourself. This is all quite necessary."

"For what?"

"Membership. Do sit down, but take care to remove the Whoopee-Cushion. Now. I gather Mister Biddle has told you nothing."

"That's right," said Kinkaid, still annoyed.

"Then I'll explain. You are in the headquarters of the S.P.O.L.--the Society for the Preservation of Laughter. We're a secret organization, running counter to established law. Most of what we do is either frowned upon or strictly forbidden. We are, in short, outlaws."

Kinkaid glanced at Biddle, then struck a cigarette, nervously.

"I," said the belled figure, "am known as the Grand Jester. Mister Biddle, here, is one of our Interlocutors. Should you be accepted, you would start as a Schlock. It is no disgrace: we were all Schlocks, once. After six months, however, you would be ent.i.tled to apply for a raise in status. a.s.suming a positive vote, you would then ascend to the Second Degree, that of Hipster. And so forth. Am I making myself clear?"

"Not exactly," said Kinkaid."Well, then, skipping the parliamentary jazz for the mo," said the Grand Jester, "it should be enough to say that our t.i.tle explains our purpose. The world has forgotten how to laugh, Mister Kinkaid.

Some of us regret that fact. Unlike the authorities we feel that laughter is sufficiently important to be preserved, despite the grave psychological risk. You dig?"

"I didn't know there was any psychological risk in laughter."

"Then you have not been with it, friend-o. Most humor, you see, had its roots in cruelty. In stamping out cruelty, we have automatically stamped out humor. Therefore, there ain't much to laugh at no more.

"This is the story," continued the man in the golden mask. "Once upon a time, the world was a basically bad scene. We had disease and war and oppression and prejudice, and all that scam. The worst! How did the people endure it? By laughing. They worked out all their beefs with boffs, so to speak. Then the psychologists and the censors came on. We got sophisticated. Conditions improved.

And humor vanished." With his jeweled stick he pressed a number of b.u.t.tons on the desk. "It's a fragile thing, humor. a.n.a.lysis can kill it. But we are an a.n.a.lytical people now, so you'll have everything explained to you--once--to eliminate psychological after-blast. Now. I trust you understand the trick cigar episode?"

Before Kinkaid could answer, Biddle said: "I thought it best to wait." He turned. "James, it was simply that a figure of authority was momentarily rendered ridiculous. Sort of a consummation."

The Grand Jester shook his head, causing the bells to ring. "Leave him alone," he said. "Mister Kinkaid, what about the man who walked into the wall?"

Kinkaid thought a while. "What about him?"

"He was painted to represent a Negro. Negroes const.i.tute a minority race. Somewhere deep inside you, you are prejudiced against minority races. You wish them ill. When ill befalls them, you laugh."

"That's absurd," said Kinkaid.

"Yes," said the Jester, "but partially true. If your mother had walked into the wall, you would not have grinned. Ergo and thus. How else do you account for the disappearance of Negro humor? Of all racial humor, for that matter? It's basically prejudicial, cruel."

"The upside-down room is another example," said Biddle.

"Precisely," said the Jester. "I have a peep-hole through which I observe visitors. As they stumble about in discomfort, or panic, I laugh. You, Mister Kinkaid, made me laugh quite heartily. It was endsville."

"The peculiar words," said Biddle, "amuse because they are an expression of individuality. They may be interpreted as a form of rebellion against organized society."

The Jester reached into his desk, withdrew four oranges and began to juggle them. "I don't think he gets it."

"Give him time!"

"All right." The oranges fell to the floor. "My own costume harks back to a figure of great pathos, the Court Jester. He was usually a dwarf or a cripple. Funeee!"

A buzzer sounded. The man in the golden mask picked up a microphone. "What has four wheels and flies?" he shouted.

"A garbage truck!" returned a chorus of voices.

"Make it!"

The door opened. Five figures entered the room. The first was clad in a billowing polka-dot suit, the second in dark rags, the third in long underwear, the fourth in a toga, while the fifth and last was mother naked. The figures lined up in front of Kinkaid and regarded him speculatively.

"First degree interlocutors," said Biddle. "Your judges."

The naked man stepped forward. "Have you heard the one about the little moron who tried to look through a screen and strained his eyes?"

Kinkaid said, "No."There was a pause. The naked man stepped back.

The ragged man took his place. In a high-pitched sing-song voice, he said: "Roses are red, daisies chartreuse. If you will bend over, I'll give you a start."

"What?"

The polka-dot man reached into his pocket and took out a large paper, which he unrolled. It was a lined drawing of two bearded men imbedded to their chests in jungle slime. A quotation at the bottom of the picture read: 'Quicksand or not, I've half a mind to struggle.'

The man in long underwear leaned on a cane, which snapped in two. From the floor he said: "There were these real wild hopheads sitting on a curb. They're smoking away. Along comes this fire engine going about a hundred miles an hour, with the bells and the siren, screaming along. It screams right by them. Wait a minute, I forgot to say they were high. Y'know? Anyway, the first hophead turns to the other hophead and says, 'Like man. I thought they'd never leave."

The man in the toga raised his hand. "There was a young man from Saint Bee's, who was stung on the hand by a wasp. Said he, with a grin, as he somethingsomething, 'I'm sure glad it wasn't a hornet."

The five figures then began to run about the room, singing: "_He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus_: _He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus_: '_If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be much for us!_"

"Won't be much for us!" cried Biddle. "Won't be much for us!"

Abruptly the song stopped. The figures ceased their running. They peered at Kinkaid, who had sat frozen for the past several minutes; then they scampered, howling, from the room.

The Grand Jester balanced the jeweled stick on his nose and said: "They'll vote tonight."

"What do you think?" asked Biddle.

"Hard to say."

"I know, but what do you think?"

"Won't tell," said the Jester.

Biddle sighed. "All right," he said, and took Kinkaid's arm. "Nothing to do now but wait. Let's go downstairs. Maybe we can catch an orgy."

They sat in heavy leather chairs, Biddle wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, Kinkaid merely sitting, waiting for the nausea to pa.s.s.

A man in a white jacket paused and put gla.s.ses in their hands.

"Absinthe," said Biddle. "It'll rot out your eyes if you make a habit of it. Like most sins, though, it's harmless in moderation."

The thickish liquid tasted bad to Kinkaid, but appeared to settle his stomach.

Biddle was mumbling.

"What?"

"I said, I may have made a mistake." The district manager swallowed all the liquid in his gla.s.s and belched. "No point being pessimistic, though." He rose from the chair. "Come along, it's almost show time. There are a few things I want you to see."