When kidnappers Sam and Bill receive a response to their ransom letter, they expect Ebenezer will agree to pay $2,000 for the safe return of his son Johnny when, in fact, he does the opposite, demanding that they pay him to return Johnny to him—an example of situational irony. Sam’s shocked response (“Great pirates of Penzance! […] of all the impudent——”) highlights the irony of this moment. He cannot believe that Ebenezer has the nerve to use their own strategy against them.
Bill’s reaction to this letter adds another layer of situational irony to the scene. To readers’ surprise, he does not become indignant as Sam does but, instead, states that he believes Ebenezer’s terms are more than reasonable:
“Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let the chance go, are you?”
To readers’ surprise, Bill acts as if being forced to pay Ebenezer $250 for him to merely take his son back is acceptable and, further, states that Ebenezer “is a spendthrift for making [...] such a liberal offer” rather than asking for more money. This ironic moment is meant to make readers laugh as they realize just how much the tables have turned on these two men. In a way, Sam and Bill ultimately agreeing to Ebenezer’s terms shows that they have accepted some amount of punishment for their unjust crime.
In a key example of situational irony in the story, Johnny ends up enjoying being kidnapped by Sam and Bill rather than wanting to escape or go home to his father. The full extent of his enjoyment of—and comfort with—being criminally abducted comes across in a little monologue he gives while sitting around the fire with Sam and Bill the first night he’s with them:
“I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet ’possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank?”
While Bill and Sam—and readers—are expecting this child to resist his experience of being held for ransom (especially after he violently resisted the initial abduction), he instead directly states, “I like this fine.” Further, he goes on to say that he has “never camped out before,” showing that he is seeing this experience more as a vacation than an abduction. The way in which he then shares his 10-year-old stream-of-consciousness thoughts with the men—telling them about school, his friends, his puppies, and more—shows how at ease he is as well. He’s not just enjoying pretending to be an “Indian” in the woods with these men, but relishing in their company and genuinely opening up to them.
While this ironic moment is meant to make readers laugh, it also points to how attention-starved and neglected Johnny must be at home for him to enjoy this experience so much. This points to O. Henry’s underlying message that the real violence in this story does not stem from the criminal actions of Sam and Bill, but from the neglect (and possible abuse) that Johnny faces at the hands of his father, Ebenezer.
