Round-Up Time

A first-person street beggar recounts encountering an eccentric, barefooted performer in the park who appears to produce unheard music that enthralls onlookers; people literally throw money at him and become trance-like, then pour into the streets in a growing, chaotic procession. The narrator follows as the crowd halts traffic and races across the city toward the riverfront, witnessing how a single strange spectacle transforms ordinary passersby into a frenzied mass. The anecdotal, colloquial account highlights themes of performance, social contagion, and the thin boundary between amusement and collective mania.