Oswald's sense of antithesis pictures in somber background that doomed spy hurried to his fate, and another swinging, strangling shape expiating through hangman's device the proven crime of "high treason."
Such diversions are not conducive to cheerful reverie. His spirits droop lower under the clammy handicap. Memory of those greetings from petulant conductor and guying wag again intrudes.
Oswald is nearly opposite the Custom-House when just before him that newsboy shrieks:
"All about the murder of a young girl! Body found in the river! Police on track of the murderer!"
Tragic memories of those eventful years, augmented by petty, suggestive, yet meaningless recent affronts, shaded by somber-hued reveries, congest about the center of Oswald's sensitive consciousness at the parrot-like yell of a child.
Thought that past concealments and identity known, he now is closely trailed by New York police for the crime of Paul Lanier rouses Oswald's fighting temper to fierce heat.
There is no doubt that under such momentary emotional pressure this guiltless fugitive then would have incurred homicidal accounting by resisting to the death any attempted arrest.
Little Jack's fright at that awful stare was natural.
The scared newsboy again resumes his stereotyped yell at corner of Nassau and Wall Streets.
Oswald had turned back, intending to procure a paper and learn about this reported murder. Returning to Trinity Church, he sees the boy, farther down on opposite side of Broadway, waiting pay for copy then so tenaciously gripped by that careful old financier, who had insisted upon assurance of positive "rigor mortis" as condition precedent to purchase.