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Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella. From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall, which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Their concern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner, delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear his voice now, calling out to her in their own language across the supervening heads:

“Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home, little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear.”

From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that in his face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. His voice, steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began to entertain doubts as to his essential cowardice.

Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself the more hopelessly against the barrier of bodies.

Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The many-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation.

“Le’s tar-and-feather him.”

“White feathers!”

“Where’ll we gettum?”

“Satkins’s kosher shop on the Av’noo.”

“Where’s yer tar?”

This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practical expedient now evolved from the collective brain.

“Duck’m in the fountain!”

“Drown him in the fountain!” amended an enthusiast.

Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becoming dangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunate umbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mob impulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of the playful to push his head under just once more might be too strong. Plainly the time was ripe for intervention.

Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering, the scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts. Now, if ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion.

For the heroic role of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both by temperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into the imminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason.

The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed.

“Never mind the Dominie,” yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the rail by an end and hauling it around. “He don’t mean nothin’.”

Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gate brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened for the splash.

It did not come.

A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my unsuccessful role of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia.

Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing.

I like to think–the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself thereby–that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to intervene.

Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance grated upon her sensitive ear.

“What is that rabble about, Sally?” she inquired.

The aged negress reconnoitered. “Reckon dey’s ridin’ a gentmun on a rail,” she reported.

“A gentleman, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an affront. Look again.”