Hi, please help me I need help

Messalla frowns at the wide circular cover, for a moment returning to his own fussy world.

In these frames, the author emphasize the challenges lqbal faced by showing

London includes a quote about john thornton as he is observing hal attempt to motivate the exhausted dogs "it was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his folly". if the word "idle" is defined as "of no real worth, importance, or significance", what does this statement mean with regard to hal? who is the fool? what is hal's folly? why would john thornton think it of no real worth or useless to intervene?