Doesn’t it cost a lot of money for an appeal? I couldn’t pay you…

(DRUMMOND waves him off.)

DRUMMOND

I didn’t come here to be paid. (He turns) Well, I’d better get myself on a train.

RACHEL

There’s one out at five-thirteen. Bert, you and I can be on that train, too!

CATES

(Smiling, happy)

I’ll get my stuff!

RACHEL

I’ll help you!

(They start off. RACHEL comes back for her suitcase. CATES grabs his suit jacket, clasps DRUMMOND’S arm.)

CATES

(Calling over his shoulder)

See you at the depot!

(RACHEL and CATES go off. DRUMMOND is left alone on stage. Suddenly he notices RACHEL’S copy of Darwin on the table.)

DRUMMOND

(Calling)

Say—you forgot—

(But RACHEL and CATES are out of earshot. He weighs the volume in his hand; this one book has been the center of the whirlwind. Then DRUMMOND notices the Bible, on the JUDGE’S bench. He picks up the Bible in his other hand; he looks from one volume to the other, balancing them thoughtfully, as if his hands were scales. He half-smiles, half-shrugs. Then DRUMMOND slaps the two books together and jams them in his brief case, side by side. Slowly, he climbs to the street level and crosses the empty square.)

The curtain falls

Together, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote famous works of American drama, including Inherit the Wind, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, and Auntie Mame. For their work as playwrights, they won two Peabody Awards, the Variety Critics Poll Award, and received multiple Tony Award nominations. Their plays have been widely produced in America and throughout the world, adapted as films, and translated into numerous languages. Robert E. Lee died in 1994. Jerome Lawrence died in 2004.

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