AFTER TWENTY
YEARS
The
policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The impressiveness was
habitual and not for show, for spectators were few. The time was barely 10
o'clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of rain in them had
well nigh de peopled the streets.
Trying
doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and artful movements,
turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown the pacific thoroughfare,
the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger, made a fine picture of
a guardian of the peace. The vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and
then you might see the lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch
counter; but the majority of the doors belonged to business places that had
long since been closed.
When
about midway of a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed his walk. In the
doorway of a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an unlighted cigar in
his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man spoke up quickly.
"It's
all right, officer," he said, reassuringly. "I'm just waiting for a
friend. It's an appointment made twenty years ago. Sounds a little funny to
you, doesn't it? Well, I'll explain if you'd like to
make
certain it's all straight. 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 struck a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a pale,
square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right
eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly set.
"Twenty
years ago to-night," said the man, "I dined here at 'Big Joe' Brady's
with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. He and I were
raised 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. You couldn't have dragged Jimmy out of 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 conditions might be or
from what distance we might have to come. We figured that in twenty years each
of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made, whatever they
were going to be."
"It
sounds pretty interesting," said the policeman. "Rather a long time
between meets, though, it seems to me. Haven't you heard from your friend since
you left?"
"Well,
yes, for a time we corresponded," said the other. "But after a year
or two we lost track of each other. You see, the West is a pretty big
proposition, and I kept hustling around over it pretty
lively.
But I know Jimmy will meet me here if he's alive, for he always was the truest,
stanchest old chap in the world. He'll never forget. I came a thousand miles to
stand in this door to-night, and
it's
worth it if my old partner turns up."
The waiting
man pulled out a handsome watch, the lids of it set with small diamonds.
"Three
minutes to ten," he announced. "It was exactly ten o'clock when we
parted here at the restaurant door."
"Did
pretty well out West, didn't you?" asked the policeman.
"You
bet! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of plodder, though, good
fellow as he was. I've had to compete with some of the sharpest wits going to
get my pile. A man gets in a groove in New York. It takes the West to put a
razor-edge on him."
The
policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.
"I'll
be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to call time on
him sharp?"
"I
should say not!" said the other. "I'll give him half an hour at least.
If Jimmy is alive on earth he'll be here by that time. So long, officer."
"Good-night,
sir," said the policeman, passing on along his beat, trying doors as he
went.
There
was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from its uncertain
puffs into a steady blow. The few foot passengers astir in that quarter hurried
dismally and silently along with coat collars turned high and pocketed hands.
And in the door of the hardware store the man who had come a thousand miles to
fill an appointment, uncertain almost to absurdity, with the friend of his youth,
smoked his cigar and waited.
About
twenty minutes he waited, 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 Wells?" cried the man in the door.
"Bless
my heart!" exclaimed the new arrival, grasping both the other's hands with
his own. "It's Bob, sure as fate. I was certain I'd find you here if you
were still in existence. Well, well, well! --twenty years is a long time. The
old gone, Bob; I wish it had lasted, so we could have had another dinner there.
How has the West treated you, old man?"
"Bully;
it has given me everything I asked it for. You've changed lots, Jimmy. I never
thought you were so tall by two or three inches."
"Oh,
I grew a bit after I was twenty."
"Doing
well in New York, Jimmy?"
"Moderately.
I have a position in one of the city departments. Come on, Bob; we'll go around
to a place I know of, 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 egotism
enlarged by success, was beginning to outline the history of his career. The
other, submerged in his overcoat,
listened
with interest.
At the
corner stood a drug store, brilliant with electric lights. When they came into
this glare each of them turned simultaneously to gaze upon the other's face.
The man
from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.
"You're
not Jimmy Wells," he snapped. "Twenty years is a long time, but not
long enough to change a man's nose from a Roman to a pug."
"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 dropped over our way and
wires us she wants to have a chat with you. Going quietly, are you? That's
sensible.
Now,
before we go on to the station here's a note I was asked to hand you. You may
read it here at the window. It's from Patrolman Wells."
The
man from the West unfolded the little piece of paper handed him. 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 on 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 around and got a plain clothes man to do the job. JIMMY."
