After Twenty Years

[adapted]

by
O. Henry

After Twenty Years (adapted)

The policeman on patrol moved up the avenue in a serious way. This serious way was usual and not to show off, because there were few people watching. The time was just 10 o’clock at night, but cold bursts of wind with a little rain in them had almost emptied the streets.

Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many fancy moves, turning now and then to look down the quiet street with a careful eye, the officer, with his strong body and a little swing in his walk, made a fine picture of a police officer. The area was one that closed early. Now and then you might see the lights of a cigar shop or an all-night lunch counter; but most of the doors were for businesses that had been closed for a long time.

When about halfway along a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed down. In the doorway of a dark hardware store a man leaned, with a cigar that was not lit in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man spoke up quickly.

“It’s all right, officer,” he said, calmly. “I’m just waiting for a friend. It’s a meeting we planned twenty years ago. It sounds a little strange to you, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll explain if you want to make sure it’s all clear. About that long ago there used to be a restaurant where this store stands — ‘Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant.”

“Until five years ago,” said the policeman. “It was torn down then.”

The man in the doorway lit a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a pale face with a square jaw and bright eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow. His pin on his scarf was a large diamond, set in a strange way.

“Twenty years ago tonight,” said the man, “I ate dinner here at ‘Big Joe’ Brady’s with Jimmy Wells, my best friend, and the finest man in the world. He and I grew up here in New York, just like two brothers, together. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was going to start for the West to get rich. No one could make Jimmy leave New York; he thought it was the only place on earth. Well, we agreed that night that we would meet here again exactly twenty years from that date and time, no matter what our lives were like or how far we had to come. We thought that in twenty years each of us should have our future worked out and our money made, whatever they were going to be.”

“It sounds pretty interesting,” said the policeman. “Quite a long time between meetings, though, I think. Haven’t you heard from your friend since you left?”

“Well, yes, for a time we wrote letters to each other,” said the other. “But after a year or two we lost contact with each other. You see, the West is a very big place, and I was moving around it a lot. But I know Jimmy will meet me here if he’s alive, for he always was the truest, most loyal old friend in the world. He’ll never forget. I came a thousand miles to stand in this door tonight, and it’s worth it if my old partner comes.”

The waiting man pulled out a nice watch, its cover had small diamonds on it.

“Three minutes to ten,” he said. “It was exactly ten o’clock when we left each other here at the restaurant door.”

“Did pretty well in the West, didn’t you?” asked the policeman.

“Sure! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of slow worker, though, good guy as he was. I’ve had to compete with some of the smartest people around to make my money. A man gets into a routine in New York. It takes the West to make him sharp.”

The policeman moved his stick around and took a step or two.

“I’ll be on my way. Hope your friend shows up all right. Are you going to stop waiting for him exactly on time?”

“I don’t think so!” said the other. “I’ll give him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is still alive he’ll be here by that time. Goodbye, officer.”

“Good-night, sir,” said the policeman, walking on along his route, checking doors as he went.

There was now a light, cold rain falling, and the wind had become stronger, changing from its unsure puffs into a steady wind. The few people walking out in that area hurried sadly and silently along with coat collars turned high and hands in their pockets. And in the doorway of the hardware store the man who had come a thousand miles to keep a meeting, so unsure it was almost silly, with the friend from his youth, smoked his cigar and waited.

He waited for about twenty minutes, and then a tall man in a long coat, with the collar up to his ears, hurried across from the other side of the street. He went straight to the waiting man.

“Is that you, Bob?” he asked, not sure.

“Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” called the man in the door.

“My goodness!” said the new arrival, holding both of the other man’s hands in his. “It’s Bob, for sure. I was sure I’d find you here if you were still alive. Well, well, well! — twenty years is a long time. The old restaurant is gone, Bob; I wish it had stayed open, so we could have had another dinner there. How has the West treated you, old man?”

“Great; it has given me everything I asked it for. You’ve changed lots, Jimmy. I never thought you were taller by two or three inches.”

“Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty.”

“Doing well in New York, Jimmy?”

“A little. I have a job in one of the city offices. Come on, Bob; we’ll go to a place I know, and have a good long talk about old times.”

The two men started up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West, his pride made bigger by success, was beginning to tell the story of his career. The other, wrapped in his overcoat, listened with interest.

At the corner stood a drug store, bright with electric lights. When they came into this bright light each of them turned at the same time to look at the other’s face.

The man from the West stopped suddenly and pulled his arm away.

“You’re not Jimmy Wells,” he said angrily. “Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change a man’s nose from long and high to short and flat.”

“It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man. “You’ve been under arrest for ten minutes, ‘Silky’ Bob. Chicago thinks you may have come this way and sends us a message that it wants to have a chat with you. Going quietly, are you? That’s smart. Now, before we go to the station here is a note I was asked to give you. You may read it here at the window. It’s from Officer Wells.”

The man from the West opened the little piece of paper given to him. His hand was steady when he began to read, but it shook a little when he finished. The note was very short.

Bob: I was at the agreed place on time. When you lit a match to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t do it myself, so I went and got a policeman in plain clothes to do the job.
JIMMY.