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Between Rounds: A Collection of Stories
O. Henry was perhaps the greatest short story writer of his day. His characters may be from America at the turn of the century but their foibles and shortcomings are recognised by us all irrespective of culture or time.
Audio Cassette
First published January 28, 2003
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About the author
O. Henry
2,914 books1,872 followersSuch volumes as
Cabbages and Kings
(1904) and
The Four Million
(1906) collect short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, of American writer William Sydney Porter, who used the pen name O. Henry.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.
In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.
In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 1, 2018
I don’t get it yet, but I like it.
December 31, 2024
Mundane married life...
June 16, 2016
So much fun! I love this collection of short stories filled with humor and heart.
Read
May 5, 2020“No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying of a little child.” 🤍
August 22, 2021
I have arranged my takeaway thoughts on this short story into a haiku:
"Long-formed callouses
May be stripped bare in crisis,
But aren’t gone for good."
"Long-formed callouses
May be stripped bare in crisis,
But aren’t gone for good."
May 18, 2022
O. Henry’s “Between Rounds” starts with a domestic fight and ends in one too. A tenement house is center stage to knockout. O. Henry has a sense of humor with reality in the most part. Enjoyable especially Mrs. Murphy’s crisis!
Story in short- The McCaskeys are at it again according to police officer Cleary.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3378
The windows of Mrs. Murphy’s boarding-house were open. A group of boarders were seated on the high stoop upon round, flat mats like German pancakes. In one of the second-floor front windows Mrs. McCaskey awaited her husband. Supper was cooling on the table. Its heat went into Mrs. McCaskey.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3381
At nine Mr. McCaskey came. He carried his coat on his arm and his pipe in his teeth; and he apologised for disturbing the boarders on the steps as he selected spots of stone between them on which to set his size 9, width Ds. As he opened the door of his room he received a surprise. Instead of the usual stove-lid or potato-masher for him to dodge, came only words. Mr. McCaskey reckoned that the benign May moon had softened the breast of his spouse.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻spoiler alert
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3385
“I heard ye,” came the oral substitutes for kitchenware. “Ye can apollygise to riff-raff of the streets for settin’ yer unhandy feet on the tails of their frocks, but ye’d walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothes-line without so much as a ‘Kiss me fut,’ and I’m sure it’s that long from rubberin’ out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as there’s money to buy after drinkin’ up yer wages at Gallegher’s every Saturday evenin’, and the gas man here twice to-day for his.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3389
“Woman!” said Mr. McCaskey, dashing his coat and hat upon a chair, “the noise of ye is an insult to me appetite. When ye run down politeness ye take the mortar from between the bricks of the foundations of society. ’Tis no more than exercisin’ the acrimony of a gentleman when ye ask the dissent of ladies blockin’ the way for steppin’ between them. Will ye bring the pig’s face of ye out of the windy and see to the food?” Mrs. McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove. There was something in her manner that warned Mr. McCaskey. When the corners of her mouth went down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a fall of crockery and tinware.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3397
A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck Mrs. McCaskey below one eye. When she replied with a well-aimed coffee-pot full of a hot, black, semi-fragrant liquid the battle, according to courses, should have ended. But Mr. McCaskey was no 50-cent table d’hôter. Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they would. Let them make that faux pas. He was foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience. They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3401
equivalent was at hand. Triumphantly he sent the granite-ware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. Mrs. McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and Mr. McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice. On the sidewalk at the corner of the house Policeman Cleary was standing with one ear upturned, listening to the crash of household utensils. “’Tis Jawn McCaskey and his missis at it again,” meditated the policeman. “I wonder shall I go up and stop the row. I will not. Married folks they are; and few pleasures they have. ‘Twill not last long. Sure, they’ll have to borrow more dishes to keep it up with.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3408
The boarders on the steps were fluttered. Mr. Toomey, an insurance solicitor by birth and an investigator by profession, went inside to analyse the scream. He returned with the news that Mrs. Murphy’s little boy, Mike, was lost. Following the messenger, out bounced Mrs. Murphy — two hundred pounds in tears and hysterics, clutching the air and howling to the sky for the loss of thirty pounds of freckles and mischief. Bathos, truly; but Mr.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3411
Toomey sat down at the side of Miss Purdy, millinery, and their hands came together in sympathy. The two old maids, Misses Walsh, who complained every day about the noise in the halls, inquired immediately if anybody had looked behind the clock. Major Grigg, who sat by his fat wife on the top step, arose and buttoned his coat. “The little one lost?” he exclaimed. “I will scour the city.” His wife never allowed him out after dark. But now she said: “Go, Ludovic!” in a baritone voice. “Whoever can look upon that mother’s grief without springing to her relief has a heart of stone.” “Give me some thirty or — sixty cents, my love,” said the Major. “Lost children sometimes stray far. I may need carfares.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3420
“When’d ye see him last?” asked old man Denny, with one eye on the report of the Building Trades League. “Oh,” wailed Mrs. Murphy, “’twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago! I dunno. But it’s lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin’ on the sidewalk only this mornin’ — or was it Wednesday? I’m that busy with work, ’tis hard to keep up with dates. But I’ve looked the house over from top to cellar, and it’s gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven—”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3427
No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3427
straying of a little child. Their feet are so uncertain and feeble; the ways are so steep and strange. Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up the avenue into Billy’s place. “Gimme a rye-high,” he said to the servitor. “Haven’t seen a bow-legged, dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old lost kid around here anywhere, have you?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3438
“’Tis little Mike is lost,” said Mrs. McCaskey, in a hushed voice, “the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!” “The bit of a boy mislaid?” said Mr. McCaskey, leaning out of the window. “Why, now, that’s bad
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3441
enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If ’twas a woman I’d be willin’, for they leave peace behind ’em when they go.” Disregarding the thrust, Mrs. McCaskey caught her husband’s arm. “Jawn,” she said, sentimentally, “Missis Murphy’s little bye is lost. ’Tis a great city for losing little boys. Six years old he was. Jawn, ’tis the same age our little bye would have been if we had had one six years ago.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3445
“We never did,” said Mr. McCaskey, lingering with the fact. “But if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night, with our little Phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all.” “Ye talk foolishness,” said Mr. McCaskey. “’Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim.” “Ye lie!” said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. “Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3449
She leaned over the window-sill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below. “Jawn,” said Mrs. McCaskey, softly, “I’m sorry I was hasty wid ye.” “’Twas hasty puddin’, as ye say,” said her husband, “and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye coffee. ’Twas what ye could call a quick lunch, all right, and tell no lie.” Mrs. McCaskey slipped her arm inside her husband’s and took his rough hand in hers.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3453
“Listen at the cryin’ of poor Mrs. Murphy,” she said. “’Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If ’twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I’d be breakin’ me heart.” Awkwardly Mr. McCaskey withdrew his hand. But he laid it around the nearing shoulder of his wife. “’Tis foolishness, of course,” said he, roughly, “but I’d be cut up some meself if our little Pat was kidnapped or anything. But there never was any childer for us. Sometimes
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3457
I’ve been ugly and hard with ye, Judy. Forget it.” They leaned together, and looked down at the heart-drama being acted below.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3461
Loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in front of the boarding-house. “What’s up now, Judy?” asked Mr. McCaskey. “’Tis Missis Murphy’s voice,” said Mrs. McCaskey, harking. “She says she’s after finding little Mike asleep behind the roll of old linoleum under the bed in her room.”
I found the little boy asleep while his mother unsure when she last saw him, maybe yesterday and vocally upset. The McCaskeys argument about a non existing boy makes you wonder if they just love to sparse.
Story in short- The McCaskeys are at it again according to police officer Cleary.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3378
The windows of Mrs. Murphy’s boarding-house were open. A group of boarders were seated on the high stoop upon round, flat mats like German pancakes. In one of the second-floor front windows Mrs. McCaskey awaited her husband. Supper was cooling on the table. Its heat went into Mrs. McCaskey.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3381
At nine Mr. McCaskey came. He carried his coat on his arm and his pipe in his teeth; and he apologised for disturbing the boarders on the steps as he selected spots of stone between them on which to set his size 9, width Ds. As he opened the door of his room he received a surprise. Instead of the usual stove-lid or potato-masher for him to dodge, came only words. Mr. McCaskey reckoned that the benign May moon had softened the breast of his spouse.
🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻spoiler alert
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3385
“I heard ye,” came the oral substitutes for kitchenware. “Ye can apollygise to riff-raff of the streets for settin’ yer unhandy feet on the tails of their frocks, but ye’d walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothes-line without so much as a ‘Kiss me fut,’ and I’m sure it’s that long from rubberin’ out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as there’s money to buy after drinkin’ up yer wages at Gallegher’s every Saturday evenin’, and the gas man here twice to-day for his.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3389
“Woman!” said Mr. McCaskey, dashing his coat and hat upon a chair, “the noise of ye is an insult to me appetite. When ye run down politeness ye take the mortar from between the bricks of the foundations of society. ’Tis no more than exercisin’ the acrimony of a gentleman when ye ask the dissent of ladies blockin’ the way for steppin’ between them. Will ye bring the pig’s face of ye out of the windy and see to the food?” Mrs. McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove. There was something in her manner that warned Mr. McCaskey. When the corners of her mouth went down suddenly like a barometer it usually foretold a fall of crockery and tinware.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3397
A hunk of Swiss cheese accurately thrown by her husband struck Mrs. McCaskey below one eye. When she replied with a well-aimed coffee-pot full of a hot, black, semi-fragrant liquid the battle, according to courses, should have ended. But Mr. McCaskey was no 50-cent table d’hôter. Let cheap Bohemians consider coffee the end, if they would. Let them make that faux pas. He was foxier still. Finger-bowls were not beyond the compass of his experience. They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3401
equivalent was at hand. Triumphantly he sent the granite-ware wash basin at the head of his matrimonial adversary. Mrs. McCaskey dodged in time. She reached for a flatiron, with which, as a sort of cordial, she hoped to bring the gastronomical duel to a close. But a loud, wailing scream downstairs caused both her and Mr. McCaskey to pause in a sort of involuntary armistice. On the sidewalk at the corner of the house Policeman Cleary was standing with one ear upturned, listening to the crash of household utensils. “’Tis Jawn McCaskey and his missis at it again,” meditated the policeman. “I wonder shall I go up and stop the row. I will not. Married folks they are; and few pleasures they have. ‘Twill not last long. Sure, they’ll have to borrow more dishes to keep it up with.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3408
The boarders on the steps were fluttered. Mr. Toomey, an insurance solicitor by birth and an investigator by profession, went inside to analyse the scream. He returned with the news that Mrs. Murphy’s little boy, Mike, was lost. Following the messenger, out bounced Mrs. Murphy — two hundred pounds in tears and hysterics, clutching the air and howling to the sky for the loss of thirty pounds of freckles and mischief. Bathos, truly; but Mr.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3411
Toomey sat down at the side of Miss Purdy, millinery, and their hands came together in sympathy. The two old maids, Misses Walsh, who complained every day about the noise in the halls, inquired immediately if anybody had looked behind the clock. Major Grigg, who sat by his fat wife on the top step, arose and buttoned his coat. “The little one lost?” he exclaimed. “I will scour the city.” His wife never allowed him out after dark. But now she said: “Go, Ludovic!” in a baritone voice. “Whoever can look upon that mother’s grief without springing to her relief has a heart of stone.” “Give me some thirty or — sixty cents, my love,” said the Major. “Lost children sometimes stray far. I may need carfares.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3420
“When’d ye see him last?” asked old man Denny, with one eye on the report of the Building Trades League. “Oh,” wailed Mrs. Murphy, “’twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago! I dunno. But it’s lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin’ on the sidewalk only this mornin’ — or was it Wednesday? I’m that busy with work, ’tis hard to keep up with dates. But I’ve looked the house over from top to cellar, and it’s gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven—”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3427
No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3427
straying of a little child. Their feet are so uncertain and feeble; the ways are so steep and strange. Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up the avenue into Billy’s place. “Gimme a rye-high,” he said to the servitor. “Haven’t seen a bow-legged, dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old lost kid around here anywhere, have you?”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3438
“’Tis little Mike is lost,” said Mrs. McCaskey, in a hushed voice, “the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!” “The bit of a boy mislaid?” said Mr. McCaskey, leaning out of the window. “Why, now, that’s bad
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3441
enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If ’twas a woman I’d be willin’, for they leave peace behind ’em when they go.” Disregarding the thrust, Mrs. McCaskey caught her husband’s arm. “Jawn,” she said, sentimentally, “Missis Murphy’s little bye is lost. ’Tis a great city for losing little boys. Six years old he was. Jawn, ’tis the same age our little bye would have been if we had had one six years ago.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3445
“We never did,” said Mr. McCaskey, lingering with the fact. “But if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night, with our little Phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all.” “Ye talk foolishness,” said Mr. McCaskey. “’Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim.” “Ye lie!” said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. “Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3449
She leaned over the window-sill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below. “Jawn,” said Mrs. McCaskey, softly, “I’m sorry I was hasty wid ye.” “’Twas hasty puddin’, as ye say,” said her husband, “and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye coffee. ’Twas what ye could call a quick lunch, all right, and tell no lie.” Mrs. McCaskey slipped her arm inside her husband’s and took his rough hand in hers.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3453
“Listen at the cryin’ of poor Mrs. Murphy,” she said. “’Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If ’twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I’d be breakin’ me heart.” Awkwardly Mr. McCaskey withdrew his hand. But he laid it around the nearing shoulder of his wife. “’Tis foolishness, of course,” said he, roughly, “but I’d be cut up some meself if our little Pat was kidnapped or anything. But there never was any childer for us. Sometimes
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3457
I’ve been ugly and hard with ye, Judy. Forget it.” They leaned together, and looked down at the heart-drama being acted below.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 3461
Loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in front of the boarding-house. “What’s up now, Judy?” asked Mr. McCaskey. “’Tis Missis Murphy’s voice,” said Mrs. McCaskey, harking. “She says she’s after finding little Mike asleep behind the roll of old linoleum under the bed in her room.”
I found the little boy asleep while his mother unsure when she last saw him, maybe yesterday and vocally upset. The McCaskeys argument about a non existing boy makes you wonder if they just love to sparse.
March 14, 2018
I don‘t get it either.
What‘s the point?
What‘s the story?
It just makes no sense to me.
What‘s the point?
What‘s the story?
It just makes no sense to me.
May 2, 2013
Maybe I just didn't understand it fully or catch the twist (if there was one), but this is by far my least favorite O. Henry story so far.
June 29, 2020
I guess I don't like O. Henry. I only made it half way through this story. A married couple was having a terribly violent fight and the policeman did nothing and it was seen as a joke. I found nothing funny about it.
July 27, 2023
Кусочек жизни.
Погожий вечер в нью-йоркском доме. где проживают разные ирландские иммигранты. Счастливая ирландская семья счастливо проводит вечер кидая друг в друга кухонную утварь и ужин. Кто-то читает газету, у когото-пропал ребенок. Мир и покой.
Погожий вечер в нью-йоркском доме. где проживают разные ирландские иммигранты. Счастливая ирландская семья счастливо проводит вечер кидая друг в друга кухонную утварь и ужин. Кто-то читает газету, у когото-пропал ребенок. Мир и покой.
life-is-too-short
September 21, 2013This is either a really poor recording or I got a bad sound file (library audiobook). Can't go on, will try another O. Henry.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews