The Bismarck Tribune

THE FOOL
By Channing Pollock.

Clare Jewett, in love with the Reverend Daniel Gilchrist, marries Jerry Goodkind for his money. Daniel is dismissed from the fashionable Church of the Nativity in New York because of his radical sermons. Gilchrist is sent to the coal mines by Goodkind senior and wires that a big strike is settled.

A delegation of strikers comes north to interview the president and directors. Daniel gives the magnates 24 hours in which to sign an agreement which Gilchrist had made tentatively with the miners. Daniel establishes "Overcoat Hall," a refuge for the unemployed and maintains apartments with baths for poor people.

NOW. GO ON WITH THE STORY

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Something about 'Better Babies.'"

"Are you going into the baby business," the man asked, smiling. "No I was a hansom driver. Hacks-- man and boy-40 years. Then taxis come in-and I went out."

"What'd you do then?" the visitor was inquisitive.

"Took to drink," said Grubby blandly.

"Yeh. then drink went out," observed Mack,

"What's your job?" It was Grubby's turn to question.

"Well, I was in the movies." Mack replied: "That is, I was going to be but the fellow that was going to put up the money, his mother didn't die after all. Before that. I sold bricks --books, too.! And life insurance. Never had any luck. Who wrote that 'Luck is work.' Mr. Gilchrist."

"Well. it isnt. I've worked at 50 things. and look at me. I figure the world owes me a living. and here I am waiting for a bite of grub and an overcoat. Is it true this guy'll give you an overcoat?"

"He will if he's got one. You just come and help yourself, and talk things over. Coffee and sandwiches every night-and supper and sermons on Wednesdays."

"Preachin'" said Mack, rising.

"I'll come back tomorrow."

Grubby was reassuring him when Mary Margaret entered. She was a mere wisp, gliding on crutches, 15, pathetically pretty. She found cups and saucers on a shelf and busied herself with them.

"Don't he try to reform you?" queried Mack of Grubby skeptically. He hadn't noticed the girl.

"Naw," said Grubby. "The way he talks you'd think you was as good as him. He says he's going to start me up in the taxi business."

"What's the catch? There must be some graft in it somewhere."

"If you ask me, I think the poor gent's got a few nuts in his nose bag." Grubby described a circle over his head with his hand. "A little bit batty. That's what I say."

"And that's what you got no right to say, Grubby." Mary Margaret reproached the two with a look.

"He's been good to you, ain't he?"

"That's why we think he's nutty." said Grubby. "What's he do it for?"

"'Cause he loves you," said the girl, simply.

"What for?" asked Grubby uncomprehendingly.

"God knows!" mocked Mary Margaret. She hobbled to the table and began to set it. "It's after 7 now," she sighed, "and the meeting half an hour away and he ain't had a bite to eat since morning." She paused. "He went to see a man who killed him-self." Mack laughed. She looked at him curiously. "I mean--tried to. It was in the papers and he read it and says: I want to talk to that man.'"

She was still looking at Mack and now she recalled his words.

"Graft," she said witheringly.

"Why he didn't even have rent money yesterday and he was despirited. He ain't had money to get himself a pair of shoes, and nobody helps him, or comes near him, but you bums that roast him behind his back."

The door opened and George F. Goodkind looked in rather curiously,

"I didn't roast him. I just said he was crazy." Grubby dismissed the subject, then looked at the intruder.

"Mr. Gilchrist?" Goodkind asked stepping in.

"He'll be here any minute," answered Mary Margaret. "Won't you come in?"

Goodkind walked to the table. Grubby buried himself in his magazine and Mack walked toward the platform. Goodkind sat down but with an air that indicated he didn't want to.

"Take a magazine," the girl said. "I got to make the coffee." She turned to Grubby. "You can come and carry it up in about 15 minutes." she said. She looked toward the shelf in time to see Mack filching a loaf of sugar. "Graft" she muttered. "You ought to know." And she hobbled off, singing.

"Think she'll tell him?" Mack queried of Grubby.

"Naw," wheezed Grubby. "Anyway, he don't care. He says we're all brothers in God." Mack made grimace. "Yeh-" continued Grubby "that's what he told Jimmy Curran --brothers in God--and Jimmy just up from pinchin' a guy's pants: Jimmy says he's clean loco. Guess what he's got in the back yard."

"What?"

"Tennis. And handball games for kids. And, in the other two houses, he's got flats, with bathtubs, and the

rents ain't what they ask now for stallin' a horse. Why wouldn't I say he was crazy? Everybody says so but Mary Margaret."

The subject of the conversation entered on the heels of the scoffing. Apparently he had not heard. He rubbed his hands from the cold. He wasn't warmly dressed--in fact, he looked a bit threadbare.

"Hello, Grubby," he greeted, hanging his coat on an old rack over an umbrella that almost fell as the framework swayed, "You're early and you've brought a friend with you." He advanced and shook Mack's hand. "You're welcome." Now he recognized his other visitor. "Well, Mr. Goodkind. You're welcome too. Have you come down to look us over?"

"I've come down on personal business," said Goodkind abruptly.

"Oh, yes," said Daniel. He turned to Grubby.

"There's a box of books in the hall, Grubby. How would you and your friend like to-"

Grubby squirmed a bit.

"I've got to help with the coffee," he said.

"I see." said Daniel. He turned to Mack: "And you?"

Mack made no move to help. but advanced smiling.

"I just wanted to speak to you a minute."

"All right. after the meeting." said Gilchrist.

"I wanted to ask you-". put in Mack. still smiling.

"After the meeting." said Gilchrist with emphasis: He turned to Goodkind. "Won't you sit down?"

Mack scowled at Daniel's back.

"Thanks!" he muttered scornfully and slouched toward the door. He paused as he reached it and looked enviously at Gilchrist's overcoat hanging on the rack, He looked back, rat-like. Then, stealthily, he reached for it, caught the arm of it and pulled it toward him.

Daniel and Goodkind were concerned with each other, not Mack.

"I'm glad you dropped in tonight." Daniel said. "Because I've been intending to call on you. But there's so much to do here.."

A clatter interrupted him. The coat had come loose from the hook, but with it had come the shaky umbrella and it crashed to the floor with considerable racket.

Daniel turned to look into the sheepish eyes of a thief.

There was neither anger nor vengeance in his face-there was a smile.

CHAPTER XVI
/: Goodkind Threatens

Gilchrist surveyed the thief for a moment in silence. There wasn't even reproach in his eyes. His calm, his look of kindliness, totally disarmed the man. He dropped the coat in surrender, waiting for denunciation, brutality, arrest, he knew not what? Gilchrist made no move toward him.

"I thought you'd gone," Daniel said at last.

The thief had fled utterly-but the man was still there.

"No--I-I-wanted-"he faltered.

"You wanted my coat," said Gilchrist calmly.

Mack smiled at the simple explanation. He was relieved and somehow he felt very warm.

"Yes--that's--that's what I wanted to ask you," he said.

"I'm so glad you said so," said Gilchrist without a trace of irony

Mack looked up, surprised. "Be cause," went on Daniel, "if you hadn't, and I hadn't understood. you might have been tempted to take it without asking-and then you'd have been so sorry and ashamed." Mack wanted to lower his head: but he couldn't. The other's eyes held him.

"A man couldn't come into another man's house, and be welcomed, and then take the other man's coat, without losing his self-respect-could he?" Mack only stared. "And of course, if we're going to pull ourselves together and get out of a hole, we must keep our self-respect."

"I wouldn't steal-," started Mack apologetically.

"You couldn't." said Daniel complacently. He stooped and picked it up. "It's your coat. You asked for it. and I gave it to you. When you've worn it into a good job--come back and help me give another to someone who needs it as you do." He held up the coat for Mack to don.

"I will," said the man, pushing an arm through a sleeve, still bewildered beyond words.

"Of course you will," said Gilchrist, slapping him on the back.

"Good night."

Mack hesitated. Gilchrist had turned back to Goodkind. Mack looked at him as though he had been convinced of his madness. Then shrugging his shoulders, he strode out.

The slam of the door touched spark to the silent Goodkind.

"Hell, I'll be damned," he exploded

Gilchrist laughed. "He won't come back," Goodkind continued half-angry. "Not one in ten would come back."

"All right," said Daniel genially.

"That coat cost $20. If one in ten does come back, we've made a man for $200. Isn't it worth the price?"

"Maybe," said Goodkind, without conviction, "if a man's got the price. Have you?"

Play copyrighted, 1922, in the United States and England. Novelized version by special permission of the author, and of Brentano's publishers of the play.

(Continued in Our Next Issue)