“Even a love potion could not have made the regal Isolde fall in love with an invertebrate like that.” “Historically he is right,” said Dulcina, “I have always maintained that we should produce the opera to represent the times.” “The public would never understand it!” said Acquilla. “Where could you find a man today to play the part differently!” “My dear ladies, let me tell you frankly that what you defend is nothing but nature faking. Why, in the second act,” I continued, boiling at the recollection, “in the sublimest love scene of all drama, how do you represent it? By Isolde putting her arm around Tristan and pillowing his head on her shoulder! If you don’t see the absurdity of that, there is no sense of humor left in the world. No, really it is too funny!” At this memory, and the blank seriousness of their looks, I was seized with a sudden uncontrollable spasm of hilarity. I laughed, holding my sides until the tears ran down my cheeks. “There he is doing it again,” said Acquilla in a whisper. “Are you in such dreadful pain,” cried Dianne, seizing my arm with a warmth that should have betrayed her personal interest, while Dulcina and Carrilla stood frightened and helpless staring at me. “Pain, no! I am laughing,” I managed to cry out. “Laughing, that’s what he called it,” Acquilla explained. “No, I assure you he is not suffering. He will be quite normal in a moment!” I mastered my emotion, but the ludicrousness of their perplexed concern for me so overcame me, that again I doubled up. When at last I was master of myself, I said: “It is true you have abolished laughter! What a revelation!” I cried, struck by a sudden enlightenment. “It must be true then, that women never really had a sense of humor and only counterfeited our inexplicable amusement!” “But why do you laugh, Bogardus?” said Dulcina, curiously. “How can I explain the nature of laughter to those who have never laughed? And yet, wise women of the twenty-second century, don’t you realize that laughter has overthrown kings and gods? When men slunk in the woods and feared the night and the storm and shivered under the tyranny of fear and superstition, it was the first man who dared to laugh at a clay god, who made men gods of men themselves. You want to know what it is to laugh?” I concluded. “I will teach you as we taught our babies!” “I am willing to try,” said Acquilla, nerving herself in the interest of science. “Very well. Slip off your sandal--so. Put out your foot.” Wondering, Acquilla obliged, while the others craned about us. I took the lovely ankle firmly in my hand and ran my fingertips lightly over the sole of her foot. “Oh! Oh!” cried Acquilla, with a convulsive shiver. “It is not painful, is it?” I demanded, maliciously. “No--but it’s very strange. No, Bogardus, let go of my foot. I can’t stand any more. It--it--” “Tickles?”