"Well, has he started repeating himself?"
"Not as far as I know, but I think he thinks he has."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I've heard him telling jokes to Multivac."
"Oh, no."
"Accidentally! I walked in on him and he threw me out. He was savage. He's usually good-natured enough, and I consider it a bad sign that he was so upset at the intrusion. But the fact remains that he was telling a joke to Multivac, and I'm convinced it was one of a series."
"But why?"
Whistler shrugged and rubbed a hand fiercely across his chin. "I have a thought about that. I think he's trying to build up a store of jokes in Multivac's memory banks in order to get back new variations. You see what I mean? He's planning a mechanical jokester, so that he can have an infinite number of jokes at hand and never fear running out."
"Good Lord!"
"Objectively, there may be nothing wrong with that, but I consider it a bad sign when a Grand Master starts using Multivac for his personal problems. Any Grand Master has a certain inherent mental instability and he should be watched. Meyerhof may be approaching a borderline beyond which we lose a Grand Master."
Trask said blankly, "What are you suggesting I do?"
"You can check me. I'm too close to him to judge well, maybe, and judging humans isn't my particular talent, anyway. You're a politician; it's more your talent."
"Judging humans, perhaps, not Grand Masters."
"They're human, too. Besides, who else is to do it?"
The fingers of Trask's hand struck his desk in rapid succession over and over like a slow and muted roll of drums.
"I suppose I'll have to," he said.
Meyerhof said to Multivac, "The ardent swain, picking a bouquet of wildflowers for his loved one, was disconcerted to find himself, suddenly, in the same field with a large bull of unfriendly appearance which, gazing at him steadily, pawed the ground in a threatening manner. The young man, spying a farmer on the other side of a fairly distant fence, shouted, 'Hey, mister, is that bull safe?' The farmer surveyed the situation with critical eye, spat to one side and called back, 'He's safe as anything.' He spat again, and added, 'Can't say the same about you, though."
"
Meyerhof was about to pass on to the next when the summons came.
It wasn't really a summons. No one could summon a Grand Master. It was only a message that Division Head Trask would like very much to see Grand Master Meyerhof if Grand Master Meyerhof could spare him the time.
Meyerhof might, with impunity, have tossed the message to one side and continued with whatever he was doing. He was not subject to discipline.
On the other hand, were he to do that, they would continue to bother him-oh, very respectfully, but they would continue to bother him.
So he neutralized the pertinent circuits of Multivac and locked them into place. He put the freeze signal on his office so that no one would dare enter in his absence and left for Trask's office.
Trask coughed and felt a bit intimidated by the sullen fierceness of the other's look. He said, "We have not had occasion to know one another, Grand Master, to my great regret."
"I have reported to you," said Meyerhof stiffly.
Trask wondered what lay behind those keen, wild eyes. It was difficult for him to imagine Meyerhof with his thin face, his dark, straight hair, his intense air, even unbending long enough to tell funny stories.
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.'