AFTER TWENTY YEARS

The policeman on duty moved along the avenue. The time was only about 10
o'clock at night, but the cold wind had driven the people from the streets into
homes.

The policeman tried doors which belonged to business places that had long since
been closed.

In the doorway of a darkened store the policeman saw a man with an un-lighted
cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man spoke up quickly.

"It's all right, officer," he said. "I'm just waiting for a friend. It's an appointment we
made twenty years ago. At that time there was a restaurant where now this store
stands — 'Big Joe' Brady's restaurant."

"Five years ago it was pulled down," said the policeman. The man in the doorway
struck a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a pale face with keen eyes and a
little white scar near his right eyebrow. In his tie he wore a large diamond.

"Twenty years ago," said the man, "I dined here at 'Big Joe' Brady's restaurant with
Jimmy Wells, my best friend and the finest fellow in the world. He and I had
grown up here in New York, just like two brothers, together. I was eighteen and
Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was to start for the West to make my
fortune. Jimmy stayed in New York. He thought it was the only place on earth to
live in. Well, we agreed that night that we would meet here again in exactly twenty
years."

"It sounds pretty interesting," said the policeman. "Haven't you heard from your
friend since you left?"

"Well, yes, for a time we corresponded, but after a year or two we lost tracks of
each other."

The waiting man pulled out a watch, the lids of which were set with small
diamonds.

"Three minutes to ten," he announced. "It was exactly ten o'clock when we parted
here at the restaurant."

The policeman walked a step or two.

"I'll be on my way. I hope your friend comes here. Are you going to wait for him
only till ten?"
"Oh, no," said the other. "I'll wait till half past ten at least. If Jimmy is alive on
earth he'll be here by that time. Good night, officer!"

"Good night, sir," said the policeman, passing on, trying the doors as he went.

There was now a cold rain falling and the wind was blowing steadily. The few
passers-by hurried along silently, with coat collars turned high and hands in their
pockets. And in the doorway of the store stood the man, who had come a thousand
miles to see a friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and waited.

He waited about twenty minutes, and then a tall man in a long overcoat with collar
turned up to his ears, hurried across from the opposite side of the street. He went
directly to the waiting man.

"Is that you, Bob?" he asked doubtfully.

"Is that you, Jimmy?" cried the man in the doorway.

"Of course!" exclaimed the newcomer grasping both the other's hands with his
own.

"You've changed a lot, Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall."

"Oh, I grew a little after I was twenty. "

"Doing well in New York, Jimmy?"

"Not bad. I have a position in one of the city departments. 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 was
beginning to tell the history of his career. The other, listened with interest.

At the corner stood a drug-store brightly lit. When they came into the light, both of
them turned at the same moment to look into each other's face.

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

"You are not Jimmy Wells," he said. "Twenty years is a long time, but not long
enough to change a man's nose from a straight one to a plug".

"But twenty years sometimes change a good man into a bed one," said the tall man.
"You've been under arrest for ten minutes, Silky Bob. We received a wire from
Chicago. You are wanted there. Going quietly, are you? Now before we go to the
station here's a note I was asked to hand you. It's from the policeman Wells."
The man from the West took the little piece of paper. His hand was steady when he
began to read, but it trembled a little by the time he had finished. The note was
rather short,

"Bob,

I was at the appointed place in time. When you struck the match to light

your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. Somehow I

couldn't do it myself, so I went off and sent a detective to do the job.

Jimmy."