Hi everyone, this is your host, John Haggardorn.

We've all met them.

The world travelers, the global citizens who claim the entire Earth is their backyard.

They speak of exotic locales with casual contempt, making the planet seem no bigger than a seed of a Marasino cherry.

They insisted borders and local bride are relics of a less enlightened age.

But how deep does that worldly detachment really go?

In the heart of a bustling New York cafe,

our narrator believes she's found the one true cosmopolite since Adam himself.

But as the evening unfolds, and a simple song begins to play, a surprising clash of cultures,

and Fist reveals a truth O'Henry delivers with his signature, ironic twist.

Stay with us for a story about where we're from, where we think we're going, and the one thing

that can make even the most seasoned traveler, pick a fight.

It's New York, it's 1906, and it's classic O'Henry, in this story called A Cosmopolite

in a Cafe at 1001 Classic Short Stories and Tales.

Enjoy! At midnight, the cafe was crowded.

By some chance the little table at which I sat had escaped the eye of incomers,

and two vacant chairs at it extended their arms with venal hospitality to the influx of patrons.

And then a cosmopolite sat in one of them, and I was glad, for I held a theory that

since Adam, no true citizen of the world has existed.

We hear of them, and we see foreign labels on much luggage, but we find travelers instead

of cosmopololites.

I invoke your consideration of the scene.

...