“Say you so, my lord? then for one, I am with you;” cried Babbalanja.  “Fill me a brimmer.  Ah! but this wine leaps through me like a panther.  Ay, let us laugh:  let us roar:  let us yell!  What, if I was sad but just now?  Life is an April day, that both laughs and weeps in a breath.  But whoso is wise, laughs when he can.  Men fly from a groan; but run to a laugh.  Vee-Vee! your gourd.  My lord, let me help you.  Ah, how it sparkles!  Cups, cups, Vee-Vee, more cups!  Here, Taji, take that:  Mohi, take that:  Yoomy, take that.  And now let us drown away grief.  Ha! ha! the house of mourning, is deserted, though of old good cheer kept the funeral guests; and so keep I mine; here I sit by my dead, and replenish your wine cups.  Old Mohi, your cup:  Yoomy, yours:  ha! ha! let us laugh, let us scream!  Weeds are put off at a fair; no heart bursts but in secret; it is good to laugh, though the laugh be hollow; and wise to make merry, now and for aye.  Laugh, and make friends:  weep, and they go.  Women sob, and are rid of their grief:  men laugh, and retain it.  There is laughter in heaven, and laughter in hell.  And a deep thought whose language is laughter.  Though wisdom be wedded to woe, though the way thereto is by tears, yet all ends in a shout.  But wisdom wears no weeds; woe is more merry than mirth; ’tis a shallow grief that is sad.  Ha! ha! how demoniacs shout; how all skeletons grin; we all die with a rattle.  Laugh! laugh!  Are the cherubim grave?  Humor, thy laugh is divine; whence, mirth-making idiots have been revered; and therefore may I. Ho! let us be gay, if it be only for an hour, and Death hand us the goblet.  Vee-Vee! bring on your gourds!  Let us pledge each other in bumpers!—­let us laugh, laugh, laugh it out to the last.  All sages have laughed,—­let us; Bardianna laughed, let us; Demorkriti laughed,—­let us:  Amoree laughed,—­let us; Rabeelee roared,—­let us; the hyenas grin, the jackals yell,—­let us.—­But you don’t laugh, my lord? laugh away!”

“No, thank you, Azzageddi, not after that infernal fashion; better weep.”

“He makes me crawl all over, as if I were an ant-hill,” said Mohi.

“He’s mad, mad, mad!” cried Yoomy.

“Ay, mad, mad, mad!—­mad as the mad fiend that rides me!—­But come, sweet minstrel, wilt list to a song?—­We madmen are all poets, you know:—­Ha! ha!—­

    Stars laugh in the sky: 
      Oh fugle-fi I
    The waves dimple below: 
      Oh fugle-fo!

“The wind strikes her dulcimers; the groves give a shout; the hurricane is only an hysterical laugh; and the lightning that blasts, blasts only in play.  We must laugh or we die; to laugh is to live.  Not to laugh is to have the tetanus.  Will you weep? then laugh while you weep.  For mirth and sorrow are kin; are published by identical nerves.  Go, Yoomy:  go study anatomy:  there is much to be learned from the dead, more than you may learn from the living and I am dead though I live; and as soon dissect myself as another; I curiously