THE MAN OF THE CROWD (1840)

This is more of a vignette than a developed story, and its premise goes like this:

A bored people-watcher speculates for a while on the comings and goings of the denizens of his city. He spies one particular old gentleman, and decides to follow the fellow, and see where he goes. To the narrator's dismay, the old guy doesn't do anything but follow other people himself, constantly seeking to be associated with, though not to actually interact with, large crowds of people. Hence he is a "man of the crowd," as the narrator dubs the man upon giving up the project.

The story may have had more consequence in the 1840s than it does now, given that for many the experience of big-city American life was relatively a new phenomenon.