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It is approaching ten o'clock on the largely deserted avenue in New York. A policeman works his
way up the street, carefully checking the locked doors of the businesses that have long since
closed for the day. Suddenly, the officer of the peace encounters a man with an unlit cigar,
standing in the doorway of a hardware store. Congenially, the man tells the policeman that he is
waiting for a friend, whom he had agreed to meet with at that very spot, twenty years ago that
day.

The waiting man strikes a match to light the cigar he is holding, and in the brief flash of
illumination, the officer notes that the person before him has "a pale, square-jawed face with
keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow." On his scarf is a large diamond,
indicating great wealth. The man explains that he and the friend for whom he is waiting, his
"best chum" Jimmy Wells, had been raised in New York like brothers; when they had grown up,
Jimmy had remained in the city, but he himself had headed West to make his fortune. Upon
taking leave of each other, the two friends had agreed to meet again in exactly twenty years to
the hour, "no matter what [their] conditions might be or from what distance [they] might have to
come."

The waiting man pulls out a fancy watch, embellished with diamonds. The officer idly comments
that he must have done "pretty well out West," and the man responds, "You bet!" and expresses
the hope that Jimmy, whom he remembers as having been "a kind of plodder," has done even
half as well. He is confident that his old friend will meet him that night if he is alive, no matter
what his circumstances may be, because Jimmy always was "the truest, stanchest old chap in the
world."

The policeman continues on his way, and the man in the doorway keeps vigil as a fine rain begins
to fall. After a short time, a tall character in a long overcoat with the collar turned up to his ears
approaches and inquires hesitantly, "Is that you, Bob?"...

(The entire section is 643 words.)

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Crime Does Not Pay

I believe it would be safe to say that the theme of O. Henry's story "After Twenty Years" is an old
one: Crime Does Not Pay. O. Henry contrasts two different characters who have two different
philosophies and two different value systems. Bob is greedy and materialistic. He wants to make
a lot of money, buy a lot of things, enjoy a life of luxury, and display his success conspicuously.
And he doesn't care how he gets the money as long as he gets it. Jimmy is conventional and
conservative. He wants a good steady job that is socially useful. He wants a home and a family.
Jimmy is probably a staunch Irish-Catholic who takes his wife and children to church every
Sunday. The two men's different philosophies take them on different paths until they finally
meet again after twenty years. Jimmy has a good steady job that is useful to society. He likes his
work and he has security. When he retires he will receive a pension for the rest of his life. Bob,
on the other hand, has made a lot of money through crooked means. But he has no home, no
family, no security. The money hasn't really done him much good. He has spent some of it on a
scarf pin with a big diamond and a pocket watch decorated with small diamonds. It is important
to him to have other people look at him, to admire and envy him. But he is always on the run,
and it is probably inevitable that he will end up in prison sooner or later. In O. Henry's story Bob
discovers that he can't even trust the man he thought was his best friend. Bob has no friends
because he never stays in the same place long enough to acquire friends, and also because he is
not the kind of man that decent people would want to have as a friend. His flashy lifestyle has
made him conspicuous, easy to identify wherever he goes. His career ends up with his being led
off to jail. If he has a whole string of crimes charged against him in Chicago and elsewhere in the
West, he could be spending a long part of his life in state prisons. Crime really does not pay.

The theme of "Crime Does Not Pay" is also to be found in at least two of O. Henry's other most
popular stories. They are "A Retrieved Reformation" and obviously "The Ransom of Red Chief." In
"A Retrieved Reformation," Jimmy Valentine falls in love and plans to get married, but he realizes
that his whole shady past has come back to haunt him, regardless of how much money he has
stolen and how highly regarded he might be in the underworld as a professional safe-cracker. In
"The Ransom of Red Chief," the two kidnappers are forced to pay to get rid of their victim. O.
Henry served time in prison for embezzlement, and he associated with professional criminals
after his release. He must have come to realize that criminals are mostly losers sooner or later.

- William Delaney.

"Silky" Bob and Jimmy Wells

O. Henry's description of Bob's face by the light of his match has a double purpose. First, it is
necessary to enable Jimmy to recognize Bob as the man who is wanted by the Chicago police.
Second, it gives the author an opportunity to tell the reader what Bob looks like. We must
remember that both these men have changed a lot over the past twenty years. They are not a
couple of kids talking to each other, but men who are both approaching middle age and who
have acquired great stores of "street smarts" in their respective vocations. They are two mature
men standing in the same spot where they said goodbye as mere boys twenty years before. The
"white scar" near Bob's right eyebrow serves a dual purpose as well. It helps Jimmy to identify
him as the wanted man, and it suggests that Bob is a tough customer who has been in fights
during his years in the West.

O. Henry's description of Jimmy's manner of patrolling his beat is largely intended to show that
he has been a cop for a long time. This fact has had an indelible effect on him. He has become a
cop through and through, a man who is dedicated to upholding the law. The reader will not
discover until the end of the story that the policeman is in fact Jimmy Wells, but the reader will
have formed a strong impression of Jimmy by that time and will understand why he found it
impossible to let his old friend Bob escape from the long arm of the law. We do not know exactly
how long Jimmy has been a cop, but it could have been almost twenty years. He was twenty
years old when he and Bob said goodbye in "Big Joe" Brady's restaurant. That would be about
the age when he would be thinking about finding good steady employment. O. Henry's
description of the policeman in the opening paragraphs suggests a man who has had many years
of police work and is thoroughly set in his ways as well as content in his role and duties as a
uniformed cop.

- William Delaney.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Jimmy Wells and "Silky" Bob are so much like the tortoise and the hare in Aesop's well-known
fable that it almost seems as if O. Henry wanted to write a modernized version of the story with
human characters. In the fable the two animals engage in a foot-race. The tortoise moves slowly,
of course, but advances steadily. The hare takes off with a burst of speed and leaves his
opponent far behind. But then the hare decides to take a break, since the poor tortoise does not
seem to have a chance of winning. When the tortoise catches up with him, the hare speeds off
again and then takes another break. In the end the tortoise beats the hare to the finish line
because he passes him while he is sound asleep. The moral of the fable, which is spelled out at
the end in some editions of Aesop's Fables, is "Slow and steady wins the race."

Bob has been like the hare for the past twenty years. He tells the policeman, whom he doesn't
recognize in the dark as Jimmy:

"You see, the West is a pretty big proposition, and I kept hustling around over it pretty lively."

Bob is obviously some kind of a crook, probably a confidence trickster. He has to keep "hustling
over it pretty lively" for at least two reasons. One is that he cannot stay in any place where he
has made enemies by victimizing the local inhabitants. The other reason is that he is in chronic
danger of being arrested, either for a local crime or for one he committed elsewhere at an
earlier date. These two truths about the life of crime have been dramatized in at least three
excellent movies: Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Paper Moon.

Bob describes Jimmy in the following terms:

"He was a kind of plodder, though, good fellow as he was....A man gets in a groove in New York."

In the end it is Jimmy, the plodder, the tortoise, who wins the race. He has a good steady job. He
is probably married and has a home and a family. Bob has a diamond scarf pin and a diamond-
studded watch, but he is being hauled off to prison, where he might have to serve multiple
sentences for multiple crimes. Whatever money he has managed to accumulate, if any, will
probably go to pay a lawyer. Bob has nobody to care about him, which is why he has traveled a
thousand miles to see his old friend Jimmy.

- William Delaney.

Jimmy Wells

O. Henry shows great literary skill in his depiction of Jimmy Wells. By introducing him as a cop in
uniform patrolling his beat, O. Henry actually succeeds in disguising him. The man we see
twirling his club and trying doors along the block has obviously been a beat cop for many years,
and we visualize him as nearly forty years old, probably somewhat overweight, sure of himself,
satisfied with his job--in fact, a typical middle-aged beat cop, often called a flatfoot. We think we
know him--but we don't! We don't connect him with Jimmy Wells, because we learn from 'Silky'
Bob that Jimmy was only twenty years old when they parted twenty years earlier; and we cannot
help visualizing Jimmy as a young man who is just beginning to find his way in life. Even 'Silky'
Bob cannot realize that this stereotypical uniformed New York Cop he is talking to is his old pal
Jimmy Wells. If Bob is deceived, it is not surprising that the reader should be deceived as well. It
never occurs to us that this cop, of all people, could be Jimmy Wells. One of the ways in which
we are deceived is by O. Henry showing the cop trying doors along the way. We naturally assume
that this is his beat and that he is just doing his job. He is not there to meet anybody. But the fact
is that he is there on the scene both because it is his beat and because he intends to meet his
old friend at exactly ten o'clock. When Bob looks at his fancy watch he tells the cop that it is
three minutes to ten. Jimmy was early. That was why he was taking his own leisurely time about
approaching the site of their rendezvous. All the description of the club-twirling is intended to
show that Jimmy has been a cop for a long time and that he is walking in a leisurely fashion. O.
Henry has to introduce Jimmy, one of his principal characters, without really "introducing" him.
That was a problem the author handled beautifully. His stories are worth studying just for the
many little details he handles so adroitly.

- William Delaney.
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After Twenty Years Homework Help Questions

When does "After Twenty Years" take place?

There is little in the story "After Twenty Years" to indicate its time period. We know it is a time
period of electric lights. Although the action happens in New York City and the streets are...

What is the irony in "After Twenty Years" by O'Henry?

With irony meaning the contrast between what is expected and what actually happens, this
contrast first involves the character 'Silky Bob,' who tells the patrolman who walks his beat that
he is...

Why did Jimmy get Bob arrested in "After Twenty Years"?

O’Henry is a master of irony. The ironic thing about “After Twenty Years” is that two good friends
agree to meet each other later, but one is a cop and the other is a criminal. The cop...

What are examples of irony in "After Twenty Years"?

O. Henry's tale of the fated reunion of two old friends after twenty years involves some
surprising contradictions. The most prevalent type of irony is that of situational irony, in which
there is...

What does the title "After Twenty Years" mean?

The title,"After Twenty Years," is at the heart of O. Henry's narrative. For, two old friends who
separated in their youth have agreed to meet each other in front of their favorite restaurant....

View More Questions »

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