I want to read one more piece of prose.
And then a few poems from the last published book.
And one or two from the last winter
that are not published to end with.
But the piece of prose is called a miser.
And it's from a book of prose that's supposed
to come out later this year.
A man was able to get hold of all the laughter in the world.
And he packed it tightly and locked it up in his house
and hid the key.
The trouble was that nobody missed it.
He had to tell them what they were missing.
Nobody knew what he was talking about.
Nobody believed him.
Nobody thought that what he was talking about was real.
Who could believe that after all?
Would anyone believe it if someone
came up and said they had all the laughter in the world
locked up somewhere?
Would anyone believe it, even if neither of them laughed?
He tried to describe laughter to them.
He showed them how it was done.
He showed different ways in which
different people could laugh.
He told them all the things that made people do everything
he could remember or invent.
People falling down.
Filth.
People making terrible mistakes.
People unable to control themselves.
Misfortunes of all kinds.
People with something the matter with them.
No interest.
He told them that it would be good for their health
and that he would not make it expensive for them.
No interest.
There were many things about it that he didn't even know,
he said.
No interest.
It had been called divine, he said.
No interest.
But the man kept on trying because at least at night, he
could always go home and take out the key
and open up some and have a good laugh to himself.
But then one night, he started to laugh at himself
and that made him lonely.
He tried to invite somebody else in to laugh.
But it was very hard.
He even said he would give the laughter away.
If that somebody else laughed.
So that person remembered how to laugh.
So that person was on his side.
They were laughing together.
Somebody else was laughing with him.
But that meant that somebody else had some
of the laughter in the world.
So he started making plans to steal it.
But the other person kept giving it away.