Seventh Outside Reading

Once again, I've read an O. Henry story for my outside reading. This one's titled "After Twenty Years," and tells the story of a man waiting in the doorway of a hardware store for a friend he hasn't seen in twenty years. A police officer sees him waiting and talks to him for a bit, then leaves. After a while, another police officer comes and arrests him. At the end of the story, we learn that the first police officer was his old friend who had recognised him as a man wanted in Chicago, and had sent the other police officer out to arrest him because he just couldn't do it himself.

After reading so many O. Henry stories, you start to pick up on the surprise endings. As I began reading, I instantly knew the police officer must be his old friend. It's only obvious. I really like O. Henry, but I'm starting to worry that I won't like them as much after they become too predictable. But then I think--yes, his stories are predictable, but they're predicable in different ways. Maybe instead of not liking the stories, I'll just find myself liking them in different ways. I'm hoping so, because this book of short stories is really all I have to read right now.