them. I feel that people have been keeping something from me. Nurse!"

The nurse who had been keeping watch on Mts May through the window jumped at being barked at unexpectedly like this.

"Er, yes, Mr Standish?" she said. He clearly made her nervous.

"Why have you never told me any jokes?"

The nurse stared at him, and quivered at the impossibility of even knowing how to think about answering such a question.

"Er, well... "

"Make a note of it will you? In future I will require you and all the other staff in this hospital to tell me all the jokes you have at your disposal, is that understood?"

"Er, yes, Mr Standish - "

Standish looked at her with doubt and suspicion.

"You do know some jokes do you, nurse?" he challenged her.

"Er, yes, Mr Standish, I think, yes I do."

"Tell me one."

"What, er, now, Mr Standish?"

"This instant."

"Er, well, um - there's one which is that a patient wakes up after having, well, that is, he's been to, er, to surgery, and he wakes up and, it's not very good, but anyway, he's been to surgery and he says to the doctor when he wakes up, 'Doctor, doctor, what's wrong with me, I can't feel my legs.' And the doctor says, `Yes, I'm afraid we've had to amputate both your arms.' And that's it really. Er, that's why he couldn't feel his legs, you see."

Mr Standish looked at her levelly for a moment or two.

"You're on report, nurse," he said.

"Yes, Mr Standish."

He turned to Kate.

"Isn't there one about a chicken crossing a road or some such thing?"

"Er, yes," said Kate, doubtfully. She felt she was caught in a bit of a situation here.

"And how does that go?"

"Well," said Kate, "it goes `Why did the chicken cross the road?'"

"Yes? And?"

"And the answer is `To get to the other side'."

"I see." Standish considered things for a moment. "And what does this chicken do when it arrives at the other side of the road?."

"History does not relate," replied Kate promptly. "I think that falls outside the scope of the joke, which really only concerns itself with the journey of the chicken across the road and the chicken's reasons for making it. It's a little like a Japanese haiku in that respect."

Kate suddenly found she was enjoying herself. She managed a surreptitious wink at the nurse, who had no idea what to make of anything at all.

"I see," said Standish once again, and frowned. "And do these, er, jokes require the preparatory use of any form of artificial stimulant?"

"Depends on the joke, depends on who it's being told to."

"Hmm, well I must say, you've certainly opened up a rich furrow for me, Miss, er. It seems to me that the whole field of humour could benefit from close and immediate scrutiny. Clearly we need to sort out the jokes which have any kind of genuine psychological value from those which merely encourage drug abuse and should be stopped. Good."

He turned to address the white-coated nesearcher who was studying the TV monitor on which Mrs May's scribblings were being tracked.

"Anything fresh of value from Mr Einstein?" he asked.

The researrher did not move his eyes from the screen. He replied, "It says `How would you like your eggs? Poached or boiled?'"

Again, Standish paused.

"Interesting," he said, "very interesting. Continue to make at careful note of everything she writes. Come." This last he said to Kate, and made his way out of the room.

"Very strange people, physicists," he said as soon as they were outside again. "In my experience the ones who aren't actually dead are in some way very ill. Well, the afternoon presses on and I'm sure that you are keen to get away and write your article, Miss, er. I certainly have things urgently awaiting my attention and patients awaiting my care. So, if you have no more questions