This cabman should have felt the same desire to strangle
this man who spoke from the sidewalk. He was
plainly impotent; he was deprived of the power of
looking out. There was nothing now for which to
look out. The man on the sidewalk had dragged
a corpse from a pond and said to it,
“Be more careful, can’t you, or
you’ll drown?” My cabman pulled up and
addressed a few words of reproach to the other.
Three or four figures loomed into my cylinder, and
as they appeared spoke to the author or the victim
of the calamity in varied terms of displeasure.
Each of these reproaches was couched in terms that
defined the situation as impending. No blind
man could have conceived that the precipitate phrase
of the incident was absolutely closed.
“Look out now, cawn’t you?”
And there was nothing in his mind which approached
these sentiments near enough to tell them to go to
Hades.
However, it needed only an ear to know presently that
these expressions were formulae. It was merely
the obligatory dance which the Indians had to perform
before they went to war. These men had come to
help, but as a regular and traditional preliminary
they had first to display to this cabman their idea
of his ignominy.
The different thing in the affair was the silence
of the victim. He retorted never a word.
This, too, to me seemed to be an obedience to a recognized
form. He was the visible criminal, if there was
a criminal, and there was born of it a privilege for
them.
They unfastened the proper straps and hauled back
the cab. They fetched a mat from some obscure
place of succor, and pushed it carefully under the
prostrate thing. From this panting, quivering
mass they suddenly and emphatically reconstructed
a horse. As each man turned to go his way he
delivered some superior caution to the cabman while
the latter buckled his harness.
There was to be noticed in this band of rescuers a
young man in evening clothes and top-hat. Now,
in America a young man in evening clothes and a top-hat
may be a terrible object. He is not likely to
do violence, but he is likely to do impassivity and
indifference to the point where they become worse
than violence. There are certain of the more idle
phases of civilization to which America has not yet
awakened—and it is a matter of no moment
if she remains unaware. This matter of hats is
one of them. I recall a legend recited to me
by an esteemed friend, ex-Sheriff of Tin Can, Nevada.
Jim Cortright, one of the best gun-fighters in town,
went on a journey to Chicago, and while there he procured
a top-hat. He was quite sure how Tin Can would
accept this innovation, but he relied on the celerity
with which he could get a six-shooter in action.
One Sunday Jim examined his guns with his usual care,
placed the top-hat on the back of his head, and sauntered
coolly out into the streets of Tin Can.
