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 depeopled 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 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 scarf pin was a large diamond, oddly set.
“Twenty years ago tonight,” 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, staunchest old chap in
the world. He'll never forget. I came a thousand miles to stand in this door
tonight, 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 restaurant's 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 plainclothesman to do the
job.
JIMMY.