Welcome back, everyone to one thousand one classic short stories and tales.

This is your host, John Haggardhorn.

We have two great O'Henry short stories

for you today, beginning with After 20 Years, which is one of O'Henry's most celebrated stories

of friendship and duty. Two men make a pack to meet at the same spot 20 years later, but time

has changed them both in ways that neither one

expected. And now our story. 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 deep people 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 down the

Pacific thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger,

made a fine picture of a guardian of the piece.

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.

...