O Henry

                 Waifs and Strays
                       Part I
                   Twelve Stories


             A Little Talk About Mobs



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"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 inother 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.


"You are not liable to," said the tall man.  "They know the
motorman's all right, and that he wouldn't even run over a stray
dog if he could help it.  And they know that not a man among 'em
would tie the knot to hang even a Thomas cat that had been tried
and condemned and sentenced according to law."


"Then why do they become infuriated and make threats of lynching?"
asked the New Yorker.


"To assure the motorman," answered the tall man, "that he is safe.
If they really wanted to do him up they would go into the houses
and drop bricks on him from the third-story windows."


"New Yorkers are not cowards," said the other man, a little stiffly.


"Not one at a time," agreed the tall man, promptly.  "You've got a
fine lot of single-handed scrappers in your town.  I'd rather fight
three of you than one; and I'd go up against all the Gas Trust's
victims in a bunch before I'd pass two citizens on a dark corner,
with my watch chain showing.  When you get rounded up in a bunch you
lose your nerve.  Get you in crowds and you're easy.  Ask the 'L'
road guards and George B. Cortelyou and the tintype booths at Coney
Island.  Divided you stand, united you fall.   E pluribus nihil.  
Whenever one of your mobs surrounds a man and begins to holler,
"Lynch him!' he says to himself, "Oh, dear, I suppose I must look
pale to please the boys, but I will, forsooth, let my life insurance
premium lapse to-morrow.  This is a sure tip for me to play Methuselah
straight across the board in the next handicap.'


"I can imagine the tortured feelings of a prisoner in the hands of
New York policemen when an infuriated mob demands that he be turned
over to them for lynching.  "For God's sake, officers,' cries the
distracted wretch, 'have ye hearts of stone, that ye will not let
them wrest me from ye?'


"'Sorry, Jimmy,' says one of the policemen, 'but it won't do.  There's
three of us--me and Darrel and the plain-clothes man; and there's only
sivin thousand of the mob.  How'd we explain it at the office if they
took ye?  Jist chase the infuriated aggregation around the corner,
Darrel, and we'll be movin' along to the station.'"


"Some of our gatherings of excited citizens have not been so
harmless," said the New Yorker, with a faint note of civic pride.


"I'll admit that," said the tall man.  "A cousin of mine who was on
a visit here once had an arm broken and lost an ear in one of them."


"That must have been during the Cooper Union riots," remarked the
New Yorker.


"Not the Cooper Union," explained the tall man--"but it was a union
riot--at the Vanastor wedding."


"You seem to be in favor of lynch law," said the New Yorker,
severely.


"No, sir, I am not.  No intelligent man is.  But, sir, there are
certain cases when people rise in their just majesty and take a
righteous vengeance for crimes that the law is slow in punishing.
I am an advocate of law and order, but I will say to you that less
than six months ago I myself assisted at the lynching of one "of
that race that is creating a wide chasm between your section of
country and mine, sir."


"It is a deplorable condition," said the New Yorker, "that exists
in the South, but--"


"I am from Indiana, sir," said the tall man, taking another chew;
"and I don't think you will condemn my course when I tell you that
the colored man in question had stolen $9.60 in cash, sir, from my
own brother."