Tim and Nicholas read a final grouping of three O.Henry stories - "Confessions of a Humorist," "The Duplicity of Hargraves," and "The Last Leaf." These stories all concern the role of the artist in relation to other people, in very different settings and ways.

We discuss the works, using these as a springboard to consider O. Henry's notion of the artist, which is arguably central to the personality of the author.

Nicholas reads one of O. Henry's longest (and most unusual) stories, which happened to be a favorite of the author himself. "Roads of Destiny" is a kind of romantic-modernist triptych with three alternative story-lines following (roughly) the same cast of characters in Renaissance or early modern France.

We then discuss, considering this work as a kind of "road-not-taken" (i.e., O. Henry as an author of "serious" fiction), and also as an interesting experimental work in its own right.

Tim and Nicholas read two longish O. Henry stories - "A Municipal Report" and "Proof of the Pudding" - which both concern struggling authors, and which we have therefore categorized as (self-consciously) "literary."

We then discuss these works.

Nicholas and Tim again take turns reading four more of the very short stories of which O. Henry published so many - "The Cop and the Anthem," "The Furnished Room," " An Unfinished Story," and "The Pendulum." These are all centered on "domestic" themes.

We then discuss, using these New York works as a springboard to cover the last eight years of O.Henry's life, in his adopted city.

Tim and Nicholas read two longer Western stories, "The Cabellero's Way" (about a bandit, the lawman who pursues him, and the woman in both their lives), and "Friends in San Rosario" (about a Western bank being "examined" by an uptight government regulator).

Nicholas and Tim then discuss, using these works as a springboard to give a thumbnail-sketch of the earlier part of the life of the author.

Nicholas and Tim take turns reading four of O. Henry's signature very short stories with a "twist" ending: "The Social Triangle," "The Love Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein," "The Gift of the Magi," and "While the Auto Waits." All concern life and class relations (conceived broadly) in turn-of-the-century New York City.

Nicholas and Tim then discuss these works, after first grappling with O. Henry's overall place in literature.

Nicholas finishes reading the last part of the story "Lights", and then discusses the work with Tim

Nicholas reads most of one of Chekhov's longer stories - "Lights" - about the conflicted recollections of a railway engineer, and his relations in a potential love affair, and possibly more generally about youthful consciousness. (Reading continues in a second file, since the story takes more than an hour to read.)