Short Fiction by O. Henry

Author:O. Henry
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: American, Short Stories, Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2020-03-23T23:34:12+00:00

A Little Talk About Mobs

“I see,” re­marked the tall gen­tle­man in the frock coat and black slouch hat, “that an­other street car mo­tor­man in your city has nar­rowly ex­caped lynch­ing at the hands of an in­fu­ri­ated mob by light­ing a cigar and walk­ing a cou­ple of blocks down the street.”

“Do you think they would have lynched him?” asked the New Yorker, in the next seat of the ferry sta­tion, who was also wait­ing for the boat.

“Not un­til af­ter the elec­tion,” said the tall man, cut­ting a cor­ner off his plug of to­bacco. “I’ve been in your city long enough to know some­thing about your mobs. The mo­tor­man’s mob is about the least dan­ger­ous of them all, ex­cept the Na­tional Guard and the Dress­mak­ers’ Con­ven­tion.

“You see, when lit­tle Wil­lie Gold­stein is sent by his mother for pigs’ knuck­les, with a nickel tightly grasped in his chubby fist, he al­ways crosses the street car track safely twenty feet ahead of the car; and then sud­denly turns back to ask his mother whether it was pale ale or a spool of 80 white cot­ton that she wanted. The mo­tor­man yells and throws him­self on the brakes like a foot­ball player. There is a hor­ri­ble grind­ing and then a rip­ping sound, and a pierc­ing shriek, and Wil­lie is sit­ting, with part of his trousers torn away by the fender, scream­ing for his lost nickel.

“In ten sec­onds the car is sur­rounded by 600 in­fu­ri­ated cit­i­zens, cry­ing, ‘Lynch the mo­tor­man! Lynch the mo­tor­man!’ at the top of their voices. Some of them run to the near­est cigar store to get a rope; but they find the last one has just been cut up and la­belled. Hun­dreds of the ex­cited mob press close to the cow­er­ing mo­tor­man, whose hand is ob­served to trem­ble per­cep­ti­bly as he trans­fers a stick of pepsin gum from his pocket to his mouth.

“When the blood­thirsty mob of mad­dened cit­i­zens has closed in on the mo­tor­man, some bring­ing camp stools and sit­ting quite close to him, and all shout­ing, ‘Lynch him!’ Po­lice­man Fog­a­rty forces his way through them to the side of their prospec­tive vic­tim.

“ ‘Hello, Mike,’ says the mo­tor­man in a low voice, ‘nice day. Shall I sneak off a block or so, or would you like to res­cue me?’

“ ‘Well, Jerry, if you don’t mind,’ says the po­lice­man, ‘I’d like to dis­perse the in­fu­ri­ated mob sin­gle­handed. I haven’t de­feated a lynch­ing mob since last Tues­day; and that was a small one of only 300, that wanted to string up a Dago boy for sell­ing wormy pears. It would boost me some down at the sta­tion.’

“ ‘All right, Mike,’ says the mo­tor­man, ‘any­thing to oblige. I’ll turn pale and trem­ble.’

“And he does so; and Po­lice­man Fog­a­rty draws his club and says, ‘G’wan wid yez!’ and in eight sec­onds the des­per­ate mob has scat­tered and gone about its busi­ness, ex­cept about a hun­dred who re­main to search for Wil­lie’s nickel.”

“I never heard of a mob in our city do­ing vi­o­lence to a mo­tor­man be­cause of an ac­ci­dent,” said the New Yorker.

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