Poppy is in the storm cellar, clean...

Poppy is in the storm cellar, cleaning. Chippie and her little friend Arlene up top are riding along onward the swells of a perpetrate a joke about the Russian tank-commander, Colonel Vladimir Khotchokakov. They are beside themselves, each wave of laughter gaining force from the united before until their faces become red for want of breath.
Their laughter is to Poppy as water falling from a jagged height in broad curtains to the asylums below. The violent little spasms, hiccups, retching nearly, stirs the feel from the grotto or sylvan glen to the clangorous, windswept gorge.
--How like an intoxicant,