"IT'S THE WRONG NUMBER"

JEAN BAPTISTE had come eight hundred miles after one terrible year, to the feet of his father-in-law, and when he realized that such was the case upon hanging up the receiver, his composure was gone. Bitter agony beyond description overwhelmed him when he came from the booth at the end of his brief conversation with Mrs. Pruitt. Never in his life had he been as miserable as he now was. It seemed to him that in the next hour he must surely die of agony. He found a place in the station where he was very much alone, and for a time gave up to the grief and misery that had come over him.

"Unless I find some diversion, I will be unfit for anything but suicide!" he declared, trying to see before him. Out in the West all was wrong. He was now loaded down with debt. His interest was unpaid, also his taxes. His creditors for smaller amounts he had not even called upon to say that he was unable to meet his financial obligations. He had tried being blind to everything but the instance of his wife. He had just deliberately cast everything aside until he could have her. That was it. He had made himself believe that only was it necessary to see her alone, and together they would fly back to the West. He had not reckoned that his arch enemy would be lying like a great dog right at the door he was to enter.

And now, before he was hardly in the city, he was all but confronted with his hypocritical bulk.

"Oh, I can stand it no longer, no, no, no!" he cried in agonizing tones. The world to him was lost. The strong shall be the weakest when it becomes so, it is said; and surely Jean Baptiste had come to it in this hour. He had no courage, he had no hope, he had no plans.

After minutes in which he reached nowhere; minutes when all the manhood in him crept out, and went away to hide, he staggered to his feet. He straightened his body, and also his face; he became an automaton. He had decided to seek artificial stimulation. Thereupon he made his way into the main waiting room. He looked about him as one in a daze, and finally turned his face toward the entrance of the station. When there he had arrived, he hesitated, and looked from right to left. As he did so, his mind went back to some years before when he first saw the city, and had gone about its streets in search of work. A block or two away he recalled Clark Street, that part of it which had been notorious. He recalled where one could go and see almost anything he wished.

Now, he was a man, was Jean Baptiste, a man who had loved a wife as men should; a man who had found a wife and a wife's comfort all he had longed for in life. But that one he had taken as wife had fled. She had left him to the world, and all that was worldly. He was breaking down under the strain, and his manhood was for the time gone. He became as men are, as men have been, and he was at a place where he did not care. He was alone in the world, the prairies had not been good to him, and he felt he must have rest, oh, rest.

He stepped from the station, and held himself erect with an effort. He turned to his left, and walked or rather ambled along. He did not know in particular where he was going, but going somewhere he was. He kept his face turned to the west, and after many steps, he came to a side street. It was a narrow street, and he recalled it vaguely. It was called Custom House Place, and its reputation for the worst, was equalled by none. Even from where he stood the sound of ragtime music came to his ears from a gorgeous saloon across its narrow way.

He listened to it without feeling, no thrill or inspiration did it give him. He turned into this street after some minutes, and ambled along its narrow walkway. As he went along, from force of habit, he studied the various forms of vice about. In and out of its many ways, he saw the familiar women, the painted faces and the gorgeous eyes. He came presently to where Negroes stood before a saloon. They, too, were of the type he understood. Characters with soft hands, and soft skin, and he knew they never worked. He turned into it. A bar was before him, and although for liquor he had never cared especially, he could drink. He went forward to the bar and ordered a cocktail. He drank it slowly, as he observed himself, all haggard and worn in the bar mirror, and as he did so, he could see what was passing behind him. A man sat in a small ante room near a door, and he observed that men would pass by this man to a door opening obviously to a stairway beyond. He wondered what was beyond. He ordered another cocktail, and drank it slowly, studying those who passed back and forth through the door that the man opened with a spring. He decided to venture thereforth.

When he had drank his cocktail he wandered toward the door also, as if he had been accustomed to entering it. The door opened before him and he entered. He found himself in a hallway, with a flight of stairs before him, and a closed and locked door on the stairway. He stood regarding it, and espied a bell presently. This he approached and touched.

The door was opened straightway and the flight of stairs continued to the landing above. He looked up and beheld a woman standing at the top of the stairs, who had seemingly opened the door by pressing a button. He entered and approached her. As he did so, she turned and led him into a small room, then into a larger room, where sat many other women. He was directed to a chair, and became seated. He regarded all the women about wonderingly; for to him, none had said a word. He might as well have been in a house of tombstones, for they said naught to him, and did not even look at him.

He sat where he was for perhaps two minutes. Then he arose and walked to the door which he had entered, and turned to look back into the room. It was empty, every woman had disappeared without a sound in a twinkling, all except the woman who had admitted him. She stood behind, regarding him noncommittally.

"What is this place?" he inquired of her. She looked up at him, and he thought he caught something queer in her eyes. But she replied in a pleasant tone:

"Why, it is anything."

"Oh," he echoed. She continued to stand, not urging him to go, nor to stay. He looked at her closely, and saw that she was a white woman, perhaps under thirty.

"A sort of cabaret?" he suggested.

"Yes," she replied, in the same pleasant tone of voice. "A sort of cabaret."

"So you serve drinks here, then?"

"Yes, we serve drinks here."

"Where?"

"Well," and she turned and he followed her to another room apparently the abode of some one. Included in the furniture there was a table and two chairs, and while he became seated in one, she took the other and her eyes asked what he wished.

"A cocktail," he said.

She went to a tube and called the order.

"And something for yourself," he said.

She did as he directed, and duplicated his order. She came back to where he sat by the table and sat before him, without words, but a pleasant demeanor.

"Here's luck," he said, when the drinks had been brought up.

"Same to you," she responded, and both drank.

He told her then to bring some beer, and when the order had been given, he bethought himself of his errand. Instantly he became oblivious of all about him, and the old agony again returned. He stretched across the table, and was not aware that he groaned. He did not hear the woman who stood over him when she returned with the beer. He was living the life of a few minutes before,—misery.

"Here is your beer," she said, but he made no move. Presently she touched him lightly upon the shoulder, whereupon he sat erect, and looked around him bewilderingly.

"Your beer," she said, and he regarded her oddly.

"What is the matter?" she said now, and regarded him inquiringly.

"I was thinking," he replied.

"Of something unusual," she ventured.

"Yes," he answered, wearily. "Of something unusual."

She observed him more closely. She saw his haggard face; his tired, worn expression, and beneath it all she caught that sad distraction that had robbed him of his composure. In some way she really wished to help him. Here was an unusual case. She,—this woman who was for sale, became seated again, and regarding him kindly she said:

"You are in trouble."

He sighed but said no word.

"In great trouble."

He sighed again, and handed her the money for the beer.

"I wish I could help you," she said thoughtfully and her eyes fell upon the table. His hat lay there, and she saw therein the name of the town where it had been purchased.

"You don't live here?" she suggested then.

"No," he mumbled, trying to dispel the heaviness that was over him. If he could just forget. That was it. If he could forget and be normal; be as he had been until that evil genius had come back again into his life. "No," he repeated, "I don't live here."

"And—you—you—have just come?" she said. Her voice was kind. "Is it—it—a woman?"

He nodded slowly.

"Oh," she echoed. "Your wife, perhaps?"

He nodded again.

"Oh!"

They were both silent then for some moments; he struggling to forget, she wondering at the strange circumstances.

"Has some one come between you?" she inquired after a time.

"Yes," he whispered.

"Oh, that's bad," she uttered sympathetically. "It is bad to come between a man and his wife. And you—" she paused briefly then bit her lip in slight vexation, then observed him with head bent before her. It was rather unusual, and that was what had vexed her. Could it mean anything what a woman like her thought of or sympathized. Yet, she was moved by the condition of the stranger before her. She felt she had to say something. "And you—you don't look like a bad fellow at all." He looked up at her with expressionless eyes. She returned the look and then went on:

"You have such honest, frank and truthful eyes. Honestly, I feel sorry for you."

"Oh, thank you," he said gratefully then. To have some one—even such a woman look at him so kindly, to say words of condolence was like water to the thirsty. He thought then again of that other, and the father that was hers, who at that moment sat in the company of another man's wife. He recalled that Mrs. Pruitt said that he had been in town for several days and every day since he had been there. Naturally. This man courted another man's wife openly, yet was ready with all the force in him, the moment Jean Baptiste sought his God-given mate, to rise up in pious dignity to oppose him. Wrath became his now, and his eyes narrowed. In the moment he wanted to go forth and slay the beast who was making this. He rose slightly. She saw it, and her eyes widened. She reached out and touched his hand where it gripped the table.

"Please don't do that," she said, and in her voice there was a slight appeal.

He regarded her oddly, and then understood. He sank back listlessly in the seat, and sighed.

"Poor boy," she said. "Some one has done you a terrible wrong. It is strange how the world is formed, and the ill fortune it brings to some. I can just see that some one has done you a terrible wrong, and that when you rose now you would have gone forth and killed him."

He regarded her with gratitude in his eyes, and the expression upon his face told her that she had spoken truly.

"But try to refrain from that desire. Oh, it's justifiable it seems. But then when we stop to think that we will never feel the same afterward about it, it's best to try to forget our grief. You are young, and there are worlds of nice girls who would love and make for you happiness. Some day that will be yours in spite of all. So please, just think and—don't kill the one who has done this."

"You are awfully kind," he whispered. He felt rather odd. Of all places, this was not where men came to be consoled, indeed. But herein he had gotten what he could not get on Vernon Avenue where church members were supposed to dwell. He arose now.... He reached out his hand and she took it. "I don't quite understand what has happened, but you have helped me." He reached into his pocket and withdrew some coins, and this he handed her. She drew back her hand, but he insisted.

"Yes, take it. I understand your life here. But you have helped me more than you can think. I was awfully discouraged when I came. Almost was I to something rash. Take it and try to remember that you have helped some one." He squeezed her hand, and she cast her eyes down, and as she did so, he saw a tear fall to the floor. He turned quickly then and left.

He retraced his steps toward the Polk Street station, and to the booth he had been inside of an hour before. He called Mrs. Pruitt, and after a time came back over the wire, in a low, meaning voice:

"It's the wrong number."