Is there a story to this question
Answer:

Explanation:
In Passive Voice, the subjects changes into object and vice versa.
Also,
The tense ,in which the active voice is, is past continuous tense. <u>So, The sentence structure of Passive voice will be:</u>
Object + Was/Were + Being + 3rd form of verb + By + Subject.
<u>So, The sentence will be like:</u>
=> They were not being laughed at by me.
![\rule[225]{225}{2}](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=%5Crule%5B225%5D%7B225%7D%7B2%7D)
Hope this helped!
<h3>~AH1807</h3>
It's a simile because it uses "as" as a comparison
In Why, You Reckon the narrator and the other man don't hold Edward for ransom because they just were interested in the money he had.
I would say the motivation for not doing so was external since they were hungry and taking the time for holding Edward would have taken a lot of time.