Policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The impressiveness was habitual and not for show. Suddenly catch his eye on a person lighting his cigar at the dark block of the hardware shop.
It ’s all right, officer I’m just waiting for a friend. It ’s an appointment made twenty years ago with my best and finest champ in the world.
About that long ago there used to be a restaurant where this store stands-Big Joe Brady’s restaurant. Twenty years ago tonight, 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.
if he doesn't come then will you be leaving at 10?
I’ll give him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is alive on earth he’ll be here by that time.