Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London

I saw the Italian, Mike Cipriani, clutch savagely at his abdomen and
sink slowly to the deck. Shorty, the Japanese half-caste, clown that
he was, dancing and grinning on the outskirts of the struggle, with a
final grimace and hysterical giggle led the retreat across the poop
and down the poop-ladder. Never had I seen a finer exemplification
of mob psychology. Shorty, the most unstable-minded of the
individuals who composed this mob, by his own instability
precipitated the retreat in which the mob joined. When he broke
before the steady discharge of the automatic in the hand of the mate,
on the instant the rest broke with him. Least-balanced, his balance
was the balance of all of them.