Nine Stories: "The Laughing Man" by J.D. Salinger

by J.D. Salinger
The narrator of this story recalls his time with a scout-like group led by a charismatic law student who spins a serial yarn about a mysterious figure called the Laughing Man.

Here are links to our lists for other short stories in Nine Stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish,
Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, Just Before the War with the Eskimos, The Laughing Man, Down at the Dinghy, For Esmé–with Love and Squalor, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period, Teddy

Here is a link to our lists for J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. irate
    feeling or showing extreme anger
    If we had straight athletics on our minds, we went to Van Cortlandt, where the playing fields were regulation size and where the opposing team didn’t include a baby carriage or an irate old lady with a cane.
  2. impartial
    showing lack of favoritism
    He was an impartial and unexcitable umpire at all our bedlam sporting events, a master fire builder and extinguisher, and an expert, uncontemptuous first-aid man.
  3. bedlam
    a state of extreme confusion and disorder
    He was an impartial and unexcitable umpire at all our bedlam sporting events, a master fire builder and extinguisher, and an expert, uncontemptuous first-aid man.
  4. stocky
    having a short and solid form or stature
    The Chief's physical appearance in 1928 is still clear in my mind. If wishes were inches, all of us Comanches would have had him a giant in no time. The way things go, though, he was a stocky five three or four—no more than that.
  5. amalgamate
    joined together into a whole
    In his leather windbreaker, his shoulders were powerful, but narrow and sloping. At the time, however, it seemed to me that in the Chief all the most photogenic features of Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and Tom Mix had been smoothly amalgamated.
  6. tenor
    of or close in range to the highest natural adult male voice
    Then he straddled his driver’s seat backward and, in his reedy but modulated tenor voice, gave us the new installment of “The Laughing Man.”
  7. missionary
    relating to a religious operation in a foreign land
    The only son of a wealthy missionary couple, the Laughing Man was kidnapped in infancy by Chinese bandits.
  8. pique
    cause to feel resentment or indignation
    When the wealthy missionary couple refused (from a religious conviction) to pay the ransom for their son, the bandits, signally piqued, placed the little fellow’s head in a carpenter’s vise and gave the appropriate lever several turns to the right.
  9. vise
    a holding device attached to a workbench
    When the wealthy missionary couple refused (from a religious conviction) to pay the ransom for their son, the bandits, signally piqued, placed the little fellow’s head in a carpenter’s vise and gave the appropriate lever several turns to the right.
  10. dilate
    become wider
    In consequence, when the Laughing Man breathed, the hideous, mirthless gap below his nose dilated and contracted like (as I see it) some sort of monstrous vacuole.
  11. vacuole
    a tiny cavity filled with fluid in the cytoplasm of a cell
    In consequence, when the Laughing Man breathed, the hideous, mirthless gap below his nose dilated and contracted like (as I see it) some sort of monstrous vacuole.
  12. respiration
    the bodily process of inhalation and exhalation
    (The Chief demonstrated, rather than explained, the Laughing Man’s respiration method.)
  13. gossamer
    characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy
    Curiously enough, though, the bandits let him hang around their headquarters-—as long as he kept his face covered with a pale-red gossamer mask made out of poppy petals.
  14. machete
    a large knife used as a weapon or for cutting vegetation
    They all single-filed past the Laughing Man’s bed one night, thinking they had successfully doped him into a deep sleep, and stabbed at the figure under the covers with their machetes.
  15. whet
    make keen or more acute
    The event only whetted the bandits’ taste for the Laughing Man’s blood, and finally he was obliged to lock up the whole bunch of them in a deep but pleasantly decorated mausoleum.
  16. mausoleum
    a large burial chamber, usually above ground
    The event only whetted the bandits’ taste for the Laughing Man’s blood, and finally he was obliged to lock up the whole bunch of them in a deep but pleasantly decorated mausoleum.
  17. flaunt
    display proudly
    Soon the Laughing Man was regularly crossing the Chinese border into Paris, France, where he enjoyed flaunting his high but modest genius in the face of Marcel Dufarge, the internationally famous detective and witty consumptive.
  18. ascetic
    someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline
    Soon the Laughing Man had amassed the largest personal fortune in the world. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local monastery—humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising German police dogs.
  19. glib
    artfully persuasive in speech
    Four blindly loyal confederates lived with him: a glib timber wolf named Black Wing, a lovable dwarf named Omba, a giant Mongolian named Hong, whose tongue had been burned out by white men, and a gorgeous Eurasian girl, who, out of unrequited love for the Laughing Man and deep concern for his personal safety, sometimes had a pretty sticky attitude toward crime.
  20. unrequited
    not returned in kind
    Four blindly loyal confederates lived with him: a glib timber wolf named Black Wing, a lovable dwarf named Omba, a giant Mongolian named Hong, whose tongue had been burned out by white men, and a gorgeous Eurasian girl, who, out of unrequited love for the Laughing Man and deep concern for his personal safety, sometimes had a pretty sticky attitude toward crime.
  21. blunder
    an embarrassing mistake
    I was not even my parents’ son in 1928 but a devilishly smooth impostor, awaiting their slightest blunder as an excuse to move in—preferably without violence, but not necessarily—to assert my true identity.
  22. bogus
    fraudulent; having a misleading appearance
    As a precaution against breaking my bogus mother’s heart, I planned to take her into my underworld employ in some undefined but appropriately regal capacity.
  23. regal
    belonging to or befitting a supreme ruler
    As a precaution against breaking my bogus mother’s heart, I planned to take her into my underworld employ in some undefined but appropriately regal capacity.
  24. ominously
    in a manner suggesting something bad will happen
    There were twenty-five Comanches in the Club, or twenty-five legitimate living descendants of the Laughing Man—all of us circulating ominously, and incognito, throughout the city, sizing up elevator operators as potential arch-enemies, whispering side-of-the-mouth but fluent orders into the ears of cocker spaniels, drawing beads, with index fingers, on the foreheads of arithmetic teachers.
  25. incognito
    without revealing one's identity
    There were twenty-five Comanches in the Club, or twenty-five legitimate living descendants of the Laughing Man—all of us circulating ominously, and incognito, throughout the city, sizing up elevator operators as potential arch-enemies, whispering side-of-the-mouth but fluent orders into the ears of cocker spaniels, drawing beads, with index fingers, on the foreheads of arithmetic teachers.
  26. mediocre
    moderate to inferior in quality
    And always waiting, waiting for a decent chance to strike terror and admiration in the nearest mediocre heart.
  27. hedge
    avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing
    He hedged at first, but finally admitted that she was a girl.
  28. offhand
    without previous thought or preparation
    Offhand, I can remember seeing just three girls in my life who struck me as having unclassifiably great beauty at first sight.
  29. wistfully
    in a pensively sad manner
    And to really top things off, when another Comanche and I were flipping a coin to decide which team would take the field first, Mary Hudson wistfully expressed a desire to join the game.
  30. disconcerting
    causing an emotional disturbance
    She smiled back at us. It was a shade disconcerting.
  31. flair
    a natural talent
    Then the Chief took over, revealing what had formerly been a well-concealed flair for incompetence.
  32. incompetence
    lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications
    Then the Chief took over, revealing what had formerly been a well-concealed flair for incompetence.
  33. adamant
    impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, or reason
    From my position on first base, I glanced behind me now and then. Each time I did, Mary Hudson waved gaily to me. She was wearing a catcher’s mitt, her own adamant choice.
  34. surmise
    infer from incomplete evidence
    But his hair was combed wet, he had on his overcoat instead of his leather windbreaker, and I reasonably surmised that Mary Hudson was scheduled to join us.
  35. supine
    lying face upward
    When his coughing spell was over and he saw his daughter stretched out supine on the moonlit ground, Dufarge put two and two together.
  36. proportionate
    agreeing in amount, magnitude, or degree
    The bus, as usual, was quiet when he climbed in—as proportionately quiet, at any rate, as a theatre with dimming house lights.
  37. fastidious
    giving careful attention to detail
    As the Dufarges came into range, he suddenly raised his face, gave a terrible laugh, and neatly, even fastidiously, regurgitated all four bullets.
  38. rationalize
    defend, explain, or make excuses for by reasoning
    If the installment was going to be a short one anyway, it could have ended there; the Comanches could have managed to rationalize the sudden death of the Dufarges.
  39. vial
    a small bottle that contains liquid medicine
    When the Laughing Man’s small eyes finally opened, Omba eagerly raised the vial of eagles’ blood up to the mask.
  40. wan
    lacking vitality as from weariness or illness or unhappiness
    He reached out wanly for the vial of eagles’ blood and crushed it in his hand.
Created on Fri Oct 20 10:11:42 EDT 2017 (updated Mon Apr 08 16:30:30 EDT 2019)

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