Now at last he begins to comprehend the immensity and power of the Mobb. Until this point he has seen it at a remove, like a man watching a play. Now there is a reversal. Jack is the poor player having his hour on the stage, and the audience is all of London. Or since so many appear to have come in from out of town, let’s just call it all of the Universe. They react to his merest gesture. They even react to things he hasn’t actually done. Seams of laughter rip through the crowd in response to jests he is rumored to have uttered. Not one person in an hundred even knows of his own knowledge that Jack is here, because most of them (as Jack recollects from having been a part of such Mobbs) can only see others’ backs. They have been drawn here by the legend that Jack Shaftoe will be drawn to Tyburn on a sledge, and having come, and being unable to see him, they get by on the suspicion that he is out there somewhere. Jack Ketch—still stung and dismayed by the loss of those two guineas—is without a doubt the foremost member of the audience, viewing Jack’s performance from, as it were, his own private box-on-wheels.