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“I don’t see why they let these radicals congregate here and speak like that,” Shrimp said.

“The cops used to clean them out, but they got an injunction. I’d like to have been the judge. I’d have made them all go to work,” Red said.

They listened in on a political argument. A Single Taxer was defending Davis, declaring that the Republican Party was corrupt, that La Follette was trying to destroy the Supreme Court, and that also, when the last war had been declared, La Follette had proven himself to be a traitor to his country. A six-foot-four giant was defending La Follette’s progressiveness. A communist was saying, in a foreign accent, that La Follette was a class betrayer. Red got into the argument and spoke for Davis, but he didn’t get tough because the communist and La Follette man both looked pretty big.

They wandered to another group. Jim Doyle said there was Father Kroke, who thought he was God. He pointed to a skeleton of a man over six feet, not weighing more than one hundred and twenty pounds, whose hollow eyes and face contrasted with a full Jesus beard and seemed ghostly.

“I suppose, Father Kroke, that you’re the second coming of Christ?”

“Say, this guy’s belly must have the same feeling for a meal that mine has for gin,” Shrimp said.

“Hell, if he got a meal, he’d die of indigestion,” Red said.

Father Kroke tried to say something, but stuttered so badly that no one understood him. Red told him to say it in Greek. Jim Doyle said the nut had taught himself Greek and nine other languages. Red countered that he’d never taught himself how to earn an honest dollar.

“I ask you to believe me because it is a revelation. I was an atheist, too, and talked as you do now. I did, until one night when the Blessed Virgin came to me in a vision, and her spirit flew through my whole body...” Father Kroke said, stuttering on almost every word.

“She must have been pretty hard up, huh, Father Kroke?”

Father Kroke explained that mankind had been led away from the true Christianity by Anti-Christ, the Pope of Rome, and he had been called by God to guide it back to the simplicity of the early Christians, and to reestablish the Church of God on democratic principles. The American Church was, in basic doctrine, the same as the Catholic, only priests were elected by the congregations, and the doctrine of papal in-fallibility was branded a lie. It had only a small membership but it was growing. Next Sunday, he would say mass in the park by a nearby tree, if one member of the church was able to procure the wine for sacramental purposes, as she had promised.

Slug remarked that the guy had plenty of marbles missing. A fellow at Slug’s side said he was a paranoiac and also thought himself descended from Robert Bruce. Slug gave the guy a queer look. The fellow said, last Easter, Father Kroke had tried to say mass by a tree in the park, and that lightning had struck the tree. Red said it was an act of God. Studs said that nut thought he was the Pope and laughed. Jim Doyle said he was a real nut. Came from a good family, and his father would give him anything if he would work, and cut out all this insanity. But he was too far gone, and had let himself be disinherited. He lived by begging, and picking things out of garbage cans, and had no place to sleep. Sometimes, when he could get an extra dime, he walked downtown and slept in an all-night movie.

Studs goosed Father Kroke. He jumped and quivered. The mere touch of his bony body disgusted Studs.

“Father Kroke, the Holy Spook did that to you!”

“If the person who did that to me will step up, I shall be perfectly within my rights as an American citizen in slapping him,” Father Kroke excitedly stuttered.

“Satan has his eyes on you, Father Kroke!”

“Yes, Satan tried to put obstacles in my path all the time, but God is behind me.”

Father Kroke took up a collection, and four slugs and two pennies were dropped in his filthy straw hat. Father Kroke limped away from the Bug Club, a hunched living corpse in ill-fitting, hand-me-down clothes.

They went to the big circle. Jim Doyle