“Twenty years ago to-night,” 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, stanchest old chap in the world.  He’ll never forget.  I came a thousand miles to stand in this door to-night, 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.