附教学内容：
After Twenty Years
The policeman on the beat walked along the street as he always did. It was barely ten o'clock at night. When he had walked about halfway around a certain block, the policeman suddenly slowed down. In the doorway of a store stood a man, with an unlit cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man spoke up quickly.
“It's all right, officer,” he said. “I'm just waiting for a friend. It's an appointment made twenty years ago. There used to be a restaurant where this store stands — ‘Big Joe' Brady's restaurant.”
“It was here 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 face, with keen eyes, a square jaw and a little white scar near his right eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly set.
“Twenty years ago tonight,” said the man, “I dined here with Jimmy Wells, my best friend. He and I were just like two brothers. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was to leave New York and travel to the West to make my fortune. 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 built a life and made our fortunes.”
“It sounds pretty interesting,” said the policeman. “Rather a long time between meetings, though. Haven't you heard from your friend since you left?”
“Well, we kept in touch for a year or two, and then we lost contact. But I know Jimmy will meet me here if he's alive, for he always was the truest and most reliable fellow in the world. He'll never forget. I came a thousand miles to stand in this doorway tonight, and it's worthwhile if my old partner turns up.”
The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, set with small diamonds. It was three minutes to ten.
“I'll be on my way,” said the policeman. “Hope your friend turns up.”
“I'll give him half an hour at least. Bye, officer.”
The man who had come a thousand miles to keep an appointment with the friend of his youth smoked his cigar and waited. About twenty minutes later, a tall man in a long overcoat, with collar turned up to his ears, hurried toward him.
“Is that you, Bob?” he asked, doubtfully.
“Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” shouted the man in the doorway.
“Bless my heart!” cried the new arrival. “Well, well, well! Twenty years is a long time! How has the West treated you, old man?”
“It has given me everything I asked it for. You've changed lots, Jimmy. I never thought you were tall by two or three inches.”
“Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty. Come on, Bob; we'll go to a place I know and have a good long talk about old times.”
The two men walked up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West was beginning to outline the history of his career. At the corner stood a drugstore, brilliant with electric lights. Each of them turned to stare at the other's face. The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.
“As I suspected, you're not Jimmy Wells,” he said, impatiently with anger. “Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change the shape of a man's nose.”
“It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man, taking charge of the situation. “You've been under arrest for ten minutes, ‘Silky' Bob. Chicago police thought you might have dropped over our way and wired us. They want to have a chat with you. Before we go to the station, here's a note for you. It's from Patrolman Wells.”
The man from the West unfolded the paper. 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 criminal wanted in Chicago. Anyhow I couldn't arrest you myself, so I got a plain-clothes man to do the job. JIMMY.”
(Adapted from O. Henry's short story of the same title)
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