The Overcoat

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Belle, a girl of the dance halls, is seated at a beer table in the notorious "Turkey Trot" dancehall. Maurice Norton, a cast-off rich man's son, just released from prison, thinly clad and minus an overcoat to protect him from the winter's cold, wanders into the saloon. Belle strikes up an acquaintance with him and he arouses her admiration when she realizes he has offered to spend his last three dollars on her. Sharp, a detective, seated nearby in the dancehall, has recognized the ex-convict. He follows the pair when Belle takes Maurice to her home and makes a note of the address. Belle tells her newfound friend how as a sweatshop girl she was made the mistress of her employer's son and later cast off, taking up the life of the dance halls and streets, because of her love for fine dresses and good food. She shows Maurice her bankbooks and tries to give him money to buy an overcoat. He refuses to take it. After vainly seeking work for several days, Maurice, still making his home with Belle, gets a job as a street laborer. Later he is promoted to foreman of the same gang. Belle deserts her old life of the dancehalls, and takes up the drudgery of a workingman's wife. His father, longing for his son, seeks to find him and in the search hires a detective agency to locate him. The agency is the one employing the detective Sharp. When called in he tells the father he thinks his son is living with a girl of the half world and takes him to Belle's home. Maurice comes home from work and finds his father there. The father implores his son to once more become the rich man's son. But Maurice scornfully turns the proposal down. Belle, thinking he is making the sacrifice for her, tries to make it appear that he is only a passing fancy with her and that she is anxious to return to her old life. Maurice sees through her motive and she breaks down and sobs out her love for him, while the wealthy father looks on with disgust. The son tells Norton, Sr. he will not give up the woman who has slaved for him, and made a man of the "damned, depraved, idle spawn you gave birth" and denounces his parent for striving to make him do so. Maurice tells Belle he will make her his wife legally in the morning. As the father leaves, the scene fades out, with Belle and Maurice clasped in each other's arms and the bankbook showing her earnings of the old days of the dancehalls burning in the glare.