O. Henry's story of a promise kept exactly, by both men, and what it cost.
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Ten words unlock the story. Work through the four activities — say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words from the story: apprehend · rendezvous · plain clothes. Say the right word, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, there's a quick comprehension check (try the questions from memory first), then one thing to discuss.
It was barely ten o'clock, but a chilly wind with a taste of rain in it had emptied the streets. The officer moved up the avenue impressively, trying the doors of the closed shops as he went, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye down the pacific thoroughfare. The neighbourhood was one that kept early hours.
In the darkened doorway of a hardware store a man was leaning, an unlit cigar in his mouth. As the officer approached, the man spoke up quickly, as men do when they wish to be looked at before they are examined. It was all right, he said; he was waiting for a friend. It was an appointment made twenty years ago. It sounded a little funny, he supposed, and he was perfectly willing to explain it, if the officer wanted to be sure everything was straight.
Twenty years ago, he said, there had been a restaurant on this corner. He and his closest friend, Jimmy Wells, had dined there the night before he went west. They had been raised in this city together, inseparable as brothers, and they had understood perfectly well that a thousand miles and twenty years would either make them or finish them. So they had fixed a rendezvous: this doorway, this hour, this date, two decades on, whatever their circumstances and whatever the distance. He struck a match to light his cigar, and the small flame threw up a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes and a little white scar near the right eyebrow. Then the light went out.
1. What agreement did the two men make, and under what circumstances?
2. What does the match reveal — and why does O. Henry place that detail exactly there?
1. To meet at the same spot, same hour, exactly twenty years later, regardless of circumstances — made on their last evening together before he left for the West.
2. A square-jawed face with keen eyes and a small white scar. It is placed there because the officer is looking at it: on a second reading, this is the moment the story's real event occurs.
Had he kept in touch with his friend, the officer asked. For a while, the man said — they had corresponded for a year or two, and then the West had taken hold of him and the letters had stopped. But he had no doubt whatever that Jimmy would come, if he were alive at all. Jimmy was the truest, staunchest old chap in the world; he would never forget. A thousand miles could not alter a man like that.
The West, he explained, had made him. He had gone out with nothing and had worked like a dog for everything he had, and now he had a good deal. A man had to compete out there, he said; it kept you sharp. He drew out a handsome pocket watch, its lid set with small diamonds, and consulted it: three minutes to ten. Jimmy, of course, had stayed here in the old city, plodding along in the same steady groove — the finest fellow in the world, but slow. New York was a place that kept a man in a rut. It took the West to make anything of you.
The officer said he hoped the friend would come, wished him a good night, and moved on along his beat, trying doors as he went. A fine, cold drizzle had begun to fall, and the wind had risen from a doubtful puff into a steady blow. The man in the doorway turned up his collar and settled back to wait, ten minutes past the hour, then twenty.
1. How does the waiting man characterise his own twenty years, and his friend's?
2. What does the officer say and do at the end of the conversation?
1. His own: hard work, competition, and considerable money — the West made him. His friend's: steady, unchanging, decent but slow, kept in a rut by the old city.
2. He hopes the friend turns up, says goodnight, and walks on trying shop doors — behaving in every respect like a man with nothing on his mind.
At last a tall man in a long overcoat came hurrying across the avenue, collar turned up to his ears, and made straight for the doorway. Was that Bob? he asked. Was that Jimmy Wells? cried the man in the doorway. They seized each other by the arms, both talking at once, and set off up the street together, the man from the West laying out the history of his career while the taller man listened, his hands deep in his pockets.
At the corner they came into the glare of an electric light in a chemist's window, and Bob turned to look at his friend's face. He stopped, and let go of the arm. "You're not Jimmy Wells," he said. "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 wired us they thought you might be coming our way, and they'd like a word with you. Now, before we go along, here's a note somebody asked me to hand you. You may read it here at the window. It's from Patrolman Wells." Bob unfolded the small piece of paper. His hand was steady enough as he began, and it shook a little by the time he had finished. The note was 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.
1. How does Bob detect the substitution, and what is the tall man's reply?
2. Reconstruct Jimmy's evening from the note. What did he do, in what order?
1. By the shape of the nose under a bright light — Roman, not pug. The tall man replies that twenty years sometimes changes a good man into a bad one, and informs him he has been under arrest for ten minutes.
2. He kept the appointment on time, in uniform; recognised Bob's face in the match light as a wanted man; continued the conversation and said goodnight; found he could not make the arrest himself; fetched a plain clothes officer; and wrote a note so that Bob would know he had come.
A story spanning twenty years needs every perfect form English has. The perfect is not a tense but an aspect: it always looks back from a chosen point to something completed or continuing before it.
Put the verb in brackets into the correct form.
1. By the time the tall man appeared, Bob (wait) in the doorway for over half an hour.
2. The two friends (not / meet) since the night before he went west.
3. This time next month Bob (be) in custody in Chicago for four weeks.
1. had been waiting (duration up to a past point)
2. haven't met (the period runs up to now)
3. will have been (looking back from a future point)
Rewrite each sentence using the words given. Write only the missing words.
1. It seems that he made his money quickly. → He seems his money quickly.
2. He claims that he has been working honestly for years. → He claims honestly for years.
3. Jimmy recognised the face, and then he walked on. → the face, Jimmy walked on.
1. to have made 2. to have been working 3. Having recognised
All three compress two clauses into one — the characteristic move of written English at this level.
Fill each gap with the form the meaning requires, then read the whole paragraph aloud.
Bob (leave) New York twenty years earlier and (spend) the intervening years in the West. The two men (lose) touch long before the appointment came round. By ten o'clock that evening Bob (stand) in the doorway for some time, and Jimmy, (recognise) him instantly, (already / decide) what he was going to do. Bob appears (make) his fortune by methods the Chicago police would like to discuss. By the end of the week he (be) back in the city he came from.
left · spent · had lost · had been standing · having recognised · had already decided · to have made · will have been
Four different perfect forms doing four different jobs, plus two simple pasts anchored by "twenty years earlier".
Hold on to these — in the Speak tab you'll narrate twenty years in four minutes, which is exactly what the perfect aspect is built for.
O. Henry published this in 1906, in the middle of an astonishing run of New York stories. He knew the world of the story from the inside: he had been convicted of embezzlement in 1898 and served three years, beginning to write seriously in prison. The trick ending was his trademark, but the best of these stories, like this one, use it to withhold a moral rather than to supply one.
This is the heart of the lesson — do all of it out loud. The timer is there to keep you going: fill the time with detail rather than racing through it.
Tell After Twenty Years as if to someone who has never read it — and keep the reveal until the chemist's window. Move through the arc: the empty avenue and the officer on his beat → the man in the doorway → the appointment made twenty years ago → the match and the scarred face → the two versions of a life → the tall man in the overcoat → the light at the corner → the note.
Use at least three different perfect forms and at least five key words (beat, boarded up, matter-of-fact, rendezvous, plain clothes, apprehend, inseparable, divided loyalties, keep faith, bring himself to).
Build an argument. He was an officer with a duty and a friend with a promise, and he satisfied both by halves — keeping the appointment, making the arrest, doing neither with his own hands. Take a side, give three reasons, deal with the strongest objection, and state what you would have done walking up to that doorway in uniform.
Then argue the opposite for one minute.
Take the story's problem outward.
Stuck for an idea? Pick one of these and run with it: