This text is the first person narrative with some elements of description.

   The plot is simple, the plot line that centres around the  cosmopolite and his trying to prove being a true one.The narrator calles the stranger “a cosmopolite,my cosmopolite”.He doesn’t use his name.The author wanted to emphasis the importance and  meaningfulness of this person to the narrator.

   The story can be divided into 3 parts: introduction, plot  development and climax.

   The introduction opens the scene and place where the events occur. The author describes the café and people there " the marble-topped tables, the range of leather-upholstered wall seats, the gay company, the ladies dressed in demi-state toilets, speaking in an exquisite visible chorus of taste, economy, opulence or art; the sedulous and largess-loving garcons, the music wisely catering to all with its raids upon the composers; the melange of talk and laughter…”.The description helps us to get profoundly imbued with the atmosphere of that evening and place.

   Then goes the plot development.The narrator meets Mr. E. Rushmore Coglan :“My cosmopolite was named E. Rushmore Coglan, and he will be heard from next summer at Coney Island.He took the great, round world in his hand, so to speak, familiarly, contemptuously, and it seemed no larger than the seed of a Maraschino cherry in a table d'hote grape fruit. He spoke disrespectfully of the equator, he skipped from continent to continent, he derided the zones, he mopped up the high seas with his napkin”.

   Mr.Rushmore thrills the narrator with his stories:” I listened to his worldwide discourse fearful lest I should discover in it the local note of the mere globe-trotter. But his opinions never fluttered or drooped; he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation”.

   The last sentence is considered to be a climax of the story,when the narrator finds out that his beloved cosmopolitan is not the one he tries to pretend:” "Originally from Mattawamkeag, Maine, he said," continued McCarthy, "and he wouldn't stand for no knockin' the place."
        

   As for personages' characteristics, there are 2 characters in this story: the narrator and the cosmopolite.They are described both directly and indirectly.The author doesn’t give us so much information about the narrator.From the story we get to know about some his theories.one of them was that he didn’t believe true cosmopolites existed at all:” I was sure that I had found at last the one true cosmopolite since Adam”.

   O.Henry describes the cosmopolite as a haughty ,he can hardly control his  emotions:” The fist of E. Rushmore Coglan banged the table…”, “…he got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from by the other guy."

   The cosmopolite considers  patriotism "a relic of the stone age”, though his deeds show the opposite.

   He has indeed visited many places and pictures it very colorfully:”   I've seen men from Chicago  sit in a gondola in Venice on a moonlight night and brag about their drainage canal. I've seen a Southerner on being introduced to the King of England hand that monarch, without batting his eyes, the information that his grandaunt on his mother's side was related by marriage to the Perkinses, of Charleston “. From his speech we learn about his life experience.

   He considers himself a true citizen of the world, he has no passion to any particular place and claims that often :  “Let a man be a man and don't handicap him with the label of any section."

    The way the cosmopolite holds an imagine globe  “familiarly, contemptuously”, indicates his  attitude towards the geographical places on the Earth.

   “Is it fair to judge a man by his post-office address? “, he asks. And the cosmopolite managed to prove he was a really citizen of the whole world. The narrator says about him: “You would have addressed a letter to "E. Rushmore Coglan, Esq., the Earth, Solar System, the Universe," and have mailed it, feeling confident that it would be delivered to him.”

   The story is full of stylistic devices employed to create a realistic and the same time a bit ironic mood of the work.

   The phenomenon of onomatopoeia “Presto! Whiff! Zip!” produces the effect of the fast changing of events and places. “He dragged you through an Arkansas post-oak swamp, let you dry for a moment on the alkali plains of his Idaho ranch, then whirled you into the society of Viennese archdukes”-the metaphor leads us to different locations.

   The cosmopolite states  “that there is pride and rivalry between the cities of the earth, and that "the men that breed from them, they traffic up and down, but cling to their cities' hem as a child to the mother's gown.” This comparison is used to show the importance of native places for people, though he rejects this devotion.  

   “Funny Englishmen, spendthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, narrow- minded Westerners”- these epithets that are used to show that people are not always what we are used to think of them. The cosmopolite is against stereotypes.

   The comparison: “he was as impartial to cities, countries and continents as the winds or gravitation” is employed to characterize Mr. E. Rushmore Coglan, to characterize his unflagging viewing of the point.

   To describe the fight the author uses a comparison  “they fought between the tables like Titans”, to show how angry the cosmopolite was.

   E. Rushmore Coglan is effectively portrayed as a perfect cosmopolite throughout the story. Then at the end O. Henry says in effect: "Oh, he's not a cosmopolite."

   A quote : “O.Henry was a typical American – a cosmopolite who was always at home even in his country”.  In the Cosmopolite the author was doing what he was very good at. He was best at description and in this story he is describing the guy who has a story for every occassion. The cosmopolite described in the story is O.Henry himself.