Willoughby gets $50, a new suit of clothes, and a plush hotel suite with his tramp friend "The Colonel" (Walter Brennan), who launches into an extended diatribe against "the heelots", lots of heels who incessantly focus on getting money from others. Proposing to take Doe national via the radio, Mitchell is given $100 a week by the newspaper's publisher, D. B. Norton (Edward Arnold), to write radio speeches for Willoughby. Meanwhile, Willoughby is offered a $5,000 bribe from a rival newspaper to admit the whole thing was a publicity stunt, but ultimately turns it down and delivers the speech Mitchell has written for him instead. Afterward, feeling conflicted, he runs away, riding the rails with the Colonel until they reach Millsville. "John Doe" is recognized at a diner and brought to City Hall, where he's met by Bert Hanson (Regis Toomey), who explains how he was inspired by Doe's words to start a "John Doe club" with his neighbors.