“The Ransom of Red Chief” is not simply a story in the O. Henry tradition of surprise endings; it is also a story in the pattern of classical comedy, which assures the reader that sometimes in this world the underdog can win. Generally, however, slaves or servants, wives or lovers, have prevailed by outwitting their masters. In “The Ransom of Red Chief,” the kidnappers are defeated not by any scheme devised by Johnny but simply by his nature. Johnny is, himself, the ultimate ten-year-old terror, certainly worse than most small boys his age but not so unlike them as to be a monster. Part of the humor of the story comes from Johnny’s relationship to the generic ten-year-old boy. Like the generic boy, he asks questions, rambles, fantasizes, and enlists playmates. While Sam and Bill could have coped with the average ten-year-old, they are helpless in Johnny’s hands because Johnny is not average. He is tougher, meaner, and wilder than the ten-year-old whom these street-smart criminals thought they were victimizing.

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A second element in the underdog theme involves the city and the country. The sophisticated con men, Sam and Bill, select Summit, Alabama, for the scene of their crime because they think that the country bumpkins will be easy to fool: their law officers inept, their bloodhounds lazy, and their weekly rural newspapers ineffectual. Sam’s visit to the bewhiskered, tobacco-chewing citizens of Poplar Grove is related with unconcealed contempt. However, a small rural boy and his practical father defeat the crooks without even resorting to the law or the newspapers. The implication is that just as some children are tougher than adults, some rural people are tougher than city people. Sam and Bill have erred in selecting underdogs.

They have certainly erred in casting Ebenezer Dorset as an...