New York talking to itself: a shop girl deciding how to spend her lunch hour, a millionaire's son on a park bench, a waiter who was once a gentleman, and the Fool-Killer walking up a Southern road looking for custom. O. Henry wrote these at the rate of a story a week for the New York World, from hotel rooms and bar tables, and died two years after the book appeared, at forty-seven and in debt. Complete and unabridged.