"The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry

"Ebenezer" is a prominent ("having a quality that thrusts itself into attention") name, not only because it sounds funny, but also because it's the first name of the miser in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." This allusion suggests that the plot to squeeze money out of Ebenezer Dorset is doomed to fail. Another allusion is to Stevenson's "Kidnapped"--in which Ebenezer Balfour, also a miser, arranges to have a nephew kidnapped and sold into slavery in order to keep an inheritance.

The word probably has onomatopoeic origins. The example sentence repeats the harsh sound in "reaching" and "screeching" so that the reader or listener (at the beginning of the story, Sam addresses a "you") can hear and feel the pain.

The tone of this example sentence is both humorous and humiliating. Sam's audience might find the descriptive comparisons humorous, but Bill, as the big, grown man who is being tortured by a small boy, would not. In telling about the humiliation, Sam is also humiliating Bill--possibly to draw attention away from his own cowardly avoidance of the boy.

The adjective also means "despicably cowardly." This is suggested by the author's developments of the characters and plot. But Sam does not intend this meaning. Even though he chose Summit because he knew that the town does not have the resources to actually hunt them down, he would prefer to be seen as a dangerously wicked man that others would need weapons to fight.

Both the town and the kidnappers are somnolent. But the sleepy nature of the town is due to its semi-rural location, where nothing much happens, while the sleepy nature of Bill and Sam is due to the boy keeping them up most of the night with his screeching and threats. The contrast implies that the peaceful somnolence of the town could be due to the boy's absence.

Bill is attempting to sound intelligent with the use of the word "decry" to make his point, but the author uses the word to remind the reader that just before this speech, Bill was tearfully begging Sam to lower the ransom demand.

Compare with "comply"--both verbs connect to submitting to someone else's wish (often in an unhappy, reluctant way). But as the definitions and example sentences show, compliance requires action, while an accession can simply be a passive agreement.

A renegade can also be "someone who rebels and becomes an outlaw." In terms of his relationship to society, Bill is already a renegade, because he uses unlawful ways to make money. But in the example sentence, he is referring to his relationship to Sam and their kidnapping plan, which he had betrayed by trying to send the boy home.

The verb also means "make insensitive or callous; deaden feelings or morals." This does not apply to the example sentence. If Bill were able to cauterize his heart, he would not need to cauterize his thumb and hand. He is a strong man who could easily hurt the boy if he chose to, but instead, he allows the boy to play with him so roughly that he gets hurt.

The Bethlehem Royal Hospital in London is an asylum for the mentally ill. The word "Bedlam" was originally a shortened pronunciation of the place, but it now refers to a general state of confusion and disorder. Bill puns on the asylum's name with his point about a bed. Sam continues the pun by referring to the boy as a lamb. The author might be ending the story with the pun by describing the kidnappers on the lam--where they're not running from the police but from their intended victim.