The Complete Stories (Page 53)

He said, "Reports are not social acquaintance. I-I have been given to understand you have a marvelous fund of anecdotes."

"I am a jokester, sir. That’s the phrase people use. A jokester."

"They haven’t used the phrase to me, Grand Master. They have said-"

"The hell with them! I don’t care what they’ve said. See here, Trask, do you want to hear a joke?" He leaned forward across the desk, his eyes narrowed.

"By all means. Certainly," said Trask, with an effort at heartiness.

"All right. Here’s the joke: Mrs. Jones stared at the fortune card that had emerged from the weighing machine in response to her husband’s penny. She said, ‘It says here, George, that you’re suave, intelligent, farseeing, industrious and attractive to women.’ With that, she turned the card over and added, ‘And they have your weight wrong, too.’ "

Trask laughed. It was almost impossible not to. Although the punch line was predictable, the surprising facility with which Meyerhof had produced just the tone of contemptuous disdain in the woman’s voice, and the cleverness with which he had contorted the lines of his face to suit that tone carried the politician helplessly into laughter.

Meyerhof said sharply, "Why is that funny?"

Trask sobered. "I beg your pardon."

"I said, why is that funny? Why do you laugh?"

"Well," said Trask, trying to be reasonable, "the last line put every thing that preceded in a new light. The unexpectedness-"

"The point is," said Meyerhof, "that I have pictured a husband being humiliated by his wife; a marriage that is such a failure that the wife is convinced that her husband lacks any virtue. Yet you laugh at that. If you were the husband, would you find it funny?"

He waited a moment in thought, then said, "Try this one, Trask: Abner

was seated at his wife’s sickbed, weeping uncontrollably, when his wife, mustering the dregs of her strength, drew herself up to one elbow.

" ‘Abner,’ she whispered, ‘Abner, I cannot go to my Maker without confessing my misdeed.’

" ‘Not now,’ muttered the stricken husband. ‘Not now, my dear. Lie back and rest.’

" ‘I cannot,’ she cried. ‘I must tell, or my soul will never know peace. I have been unfaithful to you, Abner. In this very house, not one month ago-‘

" ‘Hush, dear,’ soothed Abner. ‘I know all about it. Why else have I poisoned you?’ "

Trask tried desperately to maintain equanimity but did not entirely succeed. He suppressed a chuckle imperfectly.

Meyerhof said, "So that’s funny, too. Adultery. Murder. All funny." , "Well, now," said Trask, "books have been written analyzing humor." : "True enough," said Meyerhof, "and I’ve read a number of them. What’s more, I’ve read most of them to Multivac. Still, the people who write the books are just guessing. Some of them say we laugh because we feel superior to the people in the joke. Some say it is because of a suddenly realized incongruity, or a sudden relief from tension, or a sudden reinterpretation of events. Is there any simple reason? Different people laugh at different jokes. No joke is universal. Some people don’t laugh at any joke. Yet what may be most important is that man is the only animal with a true sense of humor: the only animal that laughs."

Trask said suddenly, "I understand. You’re trying to analyze humor. That’s why you’re transmitting a series of jokes to Multivac."

"Who told you I was doing that? . . . Never mind, it was Whistler. I remember, now. He surprised me at it. Well, what about it?"

"Nothing at all."

"You don’t dispute my right to add anything I wish to Multivac’s general fund of knowledge, or to ask any question I wish?"

"No, not at all," said Trask hastily. "As a matter of fact, I have no doubt that this will open the way to new analyses of great interest to psychologists."

"Hmp. Maybe. Just the same there’s something plaguing me that’s more important than just the general analysis of humor. There’s a specific question I have to ask. Two of them, really."

"Oh? What’s that?" Trask wondered if the other would answer. There would be no way of compelling him if he chose not to.

But Meyerhof said, "The first question is this: Where do all these jokes come from?"

"What?"

"Who makes them up? Listen! About a month ago, I spent an evening swapping jokes. As usual, I told most of them and, as usual, the fools

laughed. Maybe they really thought the jokes were funny and maybe they were just humoring me. In any case, one creature took the liberty of slapping me on the back and saying, ‘Meyerhof, you know more jokes than any ten people I know.’

"I’m sure he was right, but it gave rise to a thought. I don’t know how many hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of jokes I’ve told at one time or another in my life, yet the fact is I never made up one. Not one. I’d only repeated them. My only contribution was to tell them. To begin with, I’d either heard them or read them. And the source of my hearing or reading didn’t make up the jokes, either. I never met anyone who ever claimed to have constructed a joke. It’s always ‘I heard a good one the other day,’ and ‘Heard any good ones lately?’

"All the jokes are old! That’s why jokes exhibit such a social lag. They still deal with seasickness, for instance, when that’s easily prevented these days and never experienced. Or they’ll deal with fortune-giving weighing machines, like the joke I told you, when such machines are found only in antique shops. Well, then, who makes up the jokes?"

Trask said, "Is that what you’re trying to find out?" It was on the tip of Trask’s tongue to add: Good Lord, who cares? He forced that impulse down. A Grand Master’s questions were always meaningful.