if the good drinkers had taken him more lightly, instead of buying his act, snickered and hooted and pelted him with sausage skins, the holocaust might have been avoided.
That's alcohol for you. It lowers your inhibitions, and opens your mind to insane thinking. The more you drink, the less you think; the less you think, the crazier you get.
See. That's how its done.
And if you whip the crowd up into a drunken frenzy, then you get a riot.