Comical, rude mechanicals

Shakespeare's characters of the lower orders are generally comic relief, even if petty criminals.

Ours are never that.

O. Henry follows Shakespeare in Hostages to Momus, though the story is entirely theirs and, the narrator being one of them, all the characters are alike low and comical, even the educated and not low.

In 41 Stories.

Written at the dawn of the last century, before 1910 (O. Henry died that year) but after the Perdicarus Affair of 1904.