In this volume, the legendary O. Henry takes readers into the careworn lives of early twentieth-century New Yorkers. The Gift of the Magi , one of this prolific author's most famous tales, tells of a couple of modest means who discover that neither can afford to buy the other a Christmas present. The lengths to which they go in order to show their love through giving reveal unexpectedly how priceless it really is. In The Cop and the Anthem , a vagrant in search of warm lodgings for winter tries his best to be incarcerated but finds that no policeman will arrest him. When a woman falls seriously ill in The Last Leaf , she comes to believe she will die when the remaining leaves on the tree outside her window drop much to the dismay of her beloved friends. A man waits for his old friend in After Twenty Years , honouring a pact made two decades earlier to meet on the same spot.