
unmoved. He was mortified, but not downcast, determined to
get back the laugh. A week went by, then two. Finally Dame
Edith stopped him as he came offstage. “You’ve lost your
laugh,” she said, “and you’ve no idea why.” He agreed, utterly
dejected, having second thoughts about a career in show busi-
ness. “It’s because you expected it, and you didn’t do whatev-
er it was that got the laugh in the first place. Never mind. It will
come back. It’s there somewhere, in you, and it will come
back. And when it does, in about three weeks, I’d say, you’ll
know what you did, and you'll never lose it again.”
Dame Edith was right. The tension of expectation, which ...