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- Mr. Hadley, Bill's employer, shows Bill a picture of Alice Mordaunt, his fiancée, and tells his office boy to admit her at once when she arrives. Bill goes out to lunch and returns to find his employer kissing Ethel, Hadley 's sister. Bill is properly horrified at such duplicity, but. faithful at all times to his employer, attempts to slip in a note warning his boss to get the "other dame" out of the way when Alice arrives. Alice, however, intercepts the note, sees Hadley kissing a strange woman and leaves in a rage. Hadley hurriedly explains things to Bill and sends him after Alice, who, when everything is explained, is mollified and greets Ethel affectionately.
- Bill, the office boy, was about as untidy a young man as one could imagine until Genevieve Reilly, a girl of his own age from another office, attracted his attention. From then on Bill gradually transformed himself into a "reg'l'r dude," as jealous Izzy Katz, a fellow office boy termed him. Bill finally summoned enough courage to ask Genevieve out to lunch. All went merrily until Izzy and some of the other boys poked their heads through the door and began to guy Bill unmercifully. In his anger Bill hurled the dishes and food at his tormentors who promptly "slung" them back. Both Bill and his "lady friend" were ejected, but Bill was somewhat solaced when he discovered that in their excitement the restaurant waiter and cashier forgot to collect for the lunch.
- Ed, in his eagerness to rescue Fay from her papa and show her the sights at the beach, persuades that young lady to come out of the sand, where she has petulantly buried herself, and let him substitute for her a pair of wooden legs wearing stockings exactly like Fay's. Papa is duped by the shocking stockings, and Fay and Ed escape. They start off in the Ferris wheel, but are frustrated in their joy by Chester, the villain, who carries off Fay and sets out to sea with her in a rowboat. The Ferris wheel is stuck in midair. Ed, frantic, leaps out of the wheel into the ocean, rescues Fay, and wins the everlasting gratitude of papa.
- Bill, still ambitious to make a name for himself, tackles the vocation of manager of a fighter. During his recreation he becomes impressed with the way "Sylves" shines shoes and figures he ought to make good as a scrapper. "Knock 'em Dead Kelly," whose manager happens into Hadley's office to draw up a life contract, gives Bill the idea, so Bill loses no time in assuring "Sylves" that his fortune will be made providing he puts his future in Bill's hands. In due time Bill gets a match with his "brush pusher" against "Knock 'em Dead Kelly." Bill figures that Ethel, with all her attractiveness, ought to help a lot, so he arranges with her to be at the ringside, and if she sees that things are not going the right way for "Sylves" to use all her cunning and make an impression with "Knock 'em Dead Kelly." Ethel, true to her promise, starts in, and as Bill figured, "Knock 'em Dead Kelly" becomes more interested in Ethel than in his opponent, and during a careless moment, one that puts an end to all hopes of "Sylves" over becoming a champion.
- Vic, the cartoonist on the Daily Blizzard, has a hard time winning the hand of Margy on account of a grouchy papa and a husky rival. Vic stands no chance against this rival with his fistic accomplishments. Dropping into the newspaper office, much discouraged, Vic gets another jolt when the editor tells him that his cartoons are punk, and fires him. Home in his room Vic looks with disgust at a drawing of the characters in his cartoon. Flooey and Axel he calls them. He has been unsuccessful in holding his job. Vic goes to bed with the blues. He dreams that the cartoons, Flooey and Axel, come to life. They are very friendly. They show him how to bluff the editor into giving him his job back. Next they teach him the methods of a bold lover and thus enable him to win the hand of Margy. They instruct him in a few tricks of boxing and Vic has the satisfaction of beating up his husky rival. This is in his dreams. Upon waking up, Vic resolves to take the hints suggested by Flooey and Axel in his dream. He is greatly disappointed, however, and gets a bad beating from both the editor and the pugilistic lover.
- Simon Jenks, always out of cash, falls in love with Bridgeen, an enterprising cook. "Sure and when you'll be having a nice, tidy sum in the bank one of these days," says she, "I'll think about it, maybe." Jenks is naturally opposed to work. He put on some old togs and a pair of blue goggles placards himself with "Help the Blind," and succeeded in collecting quite a bit of change. Meanwhile Clancy his rival, is cutting out Jenks with the cook. The latter sees Clancy calling on Bridgeen off his beat and gives the police the tip. The cop is caught, degraded and transferred to a lonely part of town where saloons are not. Bridgeen turns him down. Jenks marries the cook. She refuses to work anymore, and Jenks is forced to sham blind man again. He avoids the neighborhood where he is already known to the police, and in picking an unfamiliar quarter of the town, gets into Clancy's precinct. His ex-rival recognizes him, beats him up and hauls him in. Jenks has to send for his wife to get out of jail, and is sentenced by Bridgeen to work for a living the rest of his days.
- Fay disobeys her father, the deacon, and runs off with Edward to go in bathing. Father, sitting on the beach with his wife, is informed of Fay's actions by Steve, the suitor of his own preference. The deacon starts to find Edward. The latter, warned of his coming, changes the signs on the outside of the bath houses. The deacon gets into the women's corridor. Seeing a door ajar, he peers in. Instantly the door is slammed and he is caught fast by the whiskers. Here his wife discovers him in a compromising position. Meanwhile, Fay and Edward have captured the minister and gone out on a raft. Steve again rushes to inform his would-be father-in-law, but the deacon and his party are too late to stop the ceremony.
- Jane Mersey got to the point where she had to have a little fun or die. John, her husband, always was too busy to take her anywhere, so when an agreeable young man, whom she chanced to meet, at the home of a mutual friend asked her to lunch with him next day, she accepted with alacrity. She did not quite catch Jerry Harcourt's name on introduction, and he was equally vague as to the identity of his new acquaintance. However, this was one of the cases where ignorance is bliss. Jane and Jerry met incognito, and had enjoyed a sumptuous meal. When the waiter slid his checque to him, Harcourt discovered that he had left all his cash in his other clothes at home. Concealing his agitation from the lady, he rushed to the phone. Calling up his old acquaintance, John Mersey, he told him that he must have five dollars right off the bat. Mersey, always a friend in need, promised to run right around to the café with the sum. When John arrived, and saw for himself, he changed his mind. He dragged Jane away, and Jerry was left to be plundered of watch and raiment by the restaurant keeper.
- Archibald's wife, Frances, has acquired the club habit. She neglects to take him to the theater, and he must pass the lonely evenings tending their infant. Fay, the chauffeur, out of pity for the slighted husband, falls in love with him and begs him to elope with her. His duty to the baby, however, constrains him to decline. Fay makes up her mind to win Archibald at any cost. She kidnaps him in the auto. The wife at the club hears what has happened and rushes to the rescue. Fay's machine breaks down. Archibald escapes and flings himself into the sea. The wife swims out and saves him. Realizing that he has been faithful to her, even to the point of risking his life, Frances reassures her spouse that she will show him more affection in the future.
- Henry has a terrible temper and is a perpetual grouch. One day Henry's wife buys a little dog for a companion, but she is afraid to let Henry know of her purchase for fear he will kick the dog out. So. whenever Henry comes home, she hides the dog. One day Henry comes home earlier than usual. He stops outside his parlor door and listens, for he hears his wife talking "baby-talk" to someone inside. Of course Henry thinks that she is talking to a man. He bursts the door in, but his wife has time to put the dog out the window before he can see it. Henry accuses her of unfaithfulness but she swears on the Bible that she has had no one with her. Arguing the matter, they both walk out of the parlor. Now Henry's wife's dog is quite a connoisseur and collector of hats. When his mistress puts him out of the window he runs down the street, steals the hat of a neighbor gentleman named Murphy, runs back home, jumps in the window and deposits the hat on the middle of the rug in the parlor. Then he jumps out the window again. Presently Henry and his wife come back to the parlor, still arguing. The first thing that Henry sees is Murphy's hat. Grabbing his hat he starts out after Murphy. Henry goes to Murphy and asks him in a gentle manner if that is his hat. Murphy says yes. Henry jumps on his neck and licks him. Then, his honor vindicated. Henry starts for home. But Henry's wife's dog has not been idle in the meantime and when Henry arrives home he goes into the parlor and finds a couple more hats on the rug. Henry is exhausted but his fighting blood is up. He grabs the hats of his other two rivals and starts out looking for their owners. He finds the two of them, and as they are neither very big, he licks both of them at once. Then Henry starts home once more. In the meantime Henry's wife's dog has found a harvest of hats in the ante-room of the police station and when Henry gets back home this time he finds the parlor full of policemen's hats and thinks that his wife has been receiving the whole force, Henry gets a bomb and starts for the police station. The police are quietly playing Pinochle. Henry blows up the station, entirely ruining the game. Then Henry starts to run home and kill his guilty wife while the police pull themselves together and start after him. Henry breaks into the parlor and finds a stack of hats there that nearly reaches to the ceiling. He hunts up his wife, drags her into the parlor by her hair and tells her to prepare to die. He grabs out a knife and starts to sharpen it on his shoe. Every now and then he grabs a hair out of his wife's head and cuts it with the knife to see if it is sharp enough. All this time the police are on their way. Just as Henry is ready to do the foul deed the police break in and take him into custody. At this moment the dog runs in with another hat and Henry is led away by the police.
- Mrs. Climber is giving a reception in honor of the Countess de Shilac, and Ethel is honored with an invitation. The Countess de Shilac is forced to send her regrets by a messenger, and by chance, a society crook intercepts the messenger and plans to have his adventuress wife go to the reception and pose as the countess. He then sends the boy on with the message. Mrs. Climber is deeply disappointed when she learns that the Countess will not be present. Ethel arrives, and Mrs. Climber, in order to satisfy her guests, introduces Ethel as Countess de Shilac. The crook and adventuress arrive and announce themselves as the Count and Countess. Mrs. Climber is in a quandary; she must not let her guests know her deception. She is very busy keeping the crook and adventuress in the reception room (where they help themselves to odd articles of jewelry), while Ethel is being made a great deal of by the guests in the parlor. Ethel accidentally learns that the Countess de Shilac is in the reception room (really the adventuress). She thinks it time for her to get away, but the guests pay her so much attention that she is unable to make a graceful exit. Some of the guests miss their jewelry. Ethel is acting strangely, and she is suspected. The crooks begin to feel uncomfortable and manage to plant one of the stolen articles on Ethel. Bill arrives with a message that Ethel hurry back to the office; the boss wants her. The guests now realize that Ethel is not the Countess and when the detectives arrive they point accusing fingers at her. The two crooks continue their role of count and countess. They show disgust at what is going on, and paying their respects to Mrs. Climber, start to go. Another detective in the hall recognizes them as crooks and brings them back. At this juncture, the real Countess de Shilac arrives, much to the surprise of all. The detectives find the two crooks utterly loaded down with valuables, and Ethel is released.
- Ronald, the villain, upon proposing to Mabel and receiving no encouragement, leaves, vowing to discover his hated rival. He conceals himself in a folding couch and has himself delivered to Mabel, so that he may learn who is the object of her affections. In due course he arrives at Mabel's and raising the lid, finds Mabel entertaining the one man. Jack, during his visit, smokes many cigarettes and accidentally sets fire to the couch. To assure Mabel there is no cause for fear, he throws the couch, including Ronald, out of the window. It goes through a roof landing in an anarchists' den, who are in league with Ronald. They in turn throw it through the window and it lands in a police station, starting a fire on each visit, calling out the fire department and police. Eventually all is calmed, but poor Ronald is much upset and convinced that it is better not to force oneself where they are not wanted.
- The town marshal is in love with Susie, the daughter of Silas Crank. Susie has another admirer: Willie, a friend of Judge Short, who is running for re-election; Silas Crank is his political rival. The town marshal makes life miserable for Willie, and Willie resolves to get even. He does so by purchasing a chicken, then pretending to steal it. The ostentatious marshal arrests him but is discomforted when Susie comes to Willie's rescue and proves that the chicken was not stolen. Silas Crank has prepared to give his followers a banquet, but when the friends gather, Silas learns from his wife that the refrigerator containing the food has been stolen. In the park, Susie and Willie see a tramp walking away with the refrigerator. They notify the marshal, who refuses to believe them, having been fooled once before by Willie and the chicken. Susie and Willie meet Silas and his followers. They tell them of seeing a tramp with the missing ice box. In the meantime, the tramp has carried off the contents of the refrigerator in his arms. The marshal meets the tramp and takes the stuff away from him, and ordering him out of town, he sits down to enjoy a quiet repast. He is caught in the act by the angry Silas and crowd. The marshal is disgraced. The disappointed crowd leaves Silas and rallies to Judge Short. Willie and Susie are too busy making love to be worried about the outcome of the election.
- Tony, a printer, is affected by the love-making in the air. He tries to fascinate Maryola, the cook at his boarding-house, but is repulsed with a shower of pots and pans. He butts in upon two happy couples, who prove to him that they are in no mood to be disturbed, and in revenge on returning to the printing office he interchanges the dates of the wedding ceremonies in the local paper. The nervous grooms forget the hour of their weddings, refer to the newspaper notices, and on arriving at the church each meets the wrong young woman. Their common misfortune, however, draws them together and they are married. In the café the interchanged couples take adjoining tables, and when Tony enters the grooms vie as to which shall outdo the other in giving the printer the one good feed of his life. Soon Tony begins to feel his oats. He returns to Maryola and, braving a volley of kitchen utensils, seizes her in his arms. This time she is conquered.
- Mr. Hadley receives an early call from his fiancée, and it is arranged that she shall come back and go to luncheon with him. Bill, that morning, while delivering a message at another office, is smitten with the pretty stenographer, and on his return begins a letter to her, couched in terms of fondest endearment, on the typewriter. Before he has finished, however, he is sent on another errand, leaving his billet doux in the machine. Ethel has planned to take luncheon with her "steady," but being very busy at noon with some important letters, is unable to meet him at the time agreed. The steady comes to the office to find out what is the matter and sees Bill's love missive in the typewriter, and concludes this is the explanation. A few minutes later Mr. Hadley's fiancée returns and also discovers the letter. She hears sobs coming from the private office, and while they issue from an unhappy wife trying for a divorce, of course the young lady does not know this and suspects the worst. When at last the letter reaches the girl for whom it was intended, it falls into the hands of her sweetheart who promises that a recurrence of the offense will be painful for Bill. The luckless office boy has to explain all round, until at last everybody is pacified. But Bill makes up his mind that he had better journey through life in single blessedness.
- Fay, a young lady of modern inclinations, is rapidly becoming successful as a lawyer. She is in love with young Archibald, whose stern momma is strongly opposed to the match. Momma demands that Archibald marry Frances, a wealthy female bond holder who holds a mortgage on Momma's house and being of a villainous nature, she has demanded that Momma give her Archibald's hand in marriage or she will foreclose said mortgage. Momma has consented to this and preparations are made for the wedding. Archibald is frantic. He sends a hasty message to Fay, who rushes in her machine to Archibald's home just before the ceremony. Archibald is let down from his window by a ladder and he and Fay escape. Momma and Frances discover the elopement and jump into a powerful touring car and give chase. An accident happens to Fay's machine; it rolls off the road and dashes down the hill. The accident proves a Godsend to the true lovers because the runaway machine comes to a full stop in front of the minister's house. The pursuing car has had to follow around the road and arrives too late: Fay and Archibald are married.
- A very wealthy heiress decides to make her home in Quietville and realizing her immense fortune in jewels as well as money needs protection, she has the police stationed around the house. Of course, the news travels and attracts the yeggs as well as the Anarchist, haters of society. The yeggs decide to represent themselves as police so visit the station house and after applying the poison needle to the sleeping policemen don their clothes and send their pal to rob the house of the heiress. They then wait to get word from him that his job is complete so they can help him carry off the loot without being suspected. In the meantime a citizen oversees the anarchists plotting and phones the police. The impostors, thinking it is their pal hasten to the house mentioned and run into the anarchists' den who have been previously informed of their coming. Alas, the fake police are met with a warm reception. In the meantime the heiress phones. The police who by this time have recovered. They hasten over to her home and catch the crook at work. The anarchists chase the impostors back to the police station and end their schemes with the aid of a bomb. When the police return to the station with their prisoner they find their pals gone on to the sweet hereafter.
- Hadley engages a new office boy by the name of Bill. Ethel comes down that morning in a new skirt which she displays to Mabel across the hall. She decides that it is too long, and is wondering how she can get it shortened in time to keep a twelve o'clock luncheon engagement, when Bill comes out of the inner office bound for the tailor's with his boss's ink-stained trousers. Ethel gives him her skirt and tells him to hurry. Bill finds the tailor out and decides to make good by doing the repairing himself. Meanwhile, Hadley and Ethel, their nether persons clad in newspapers, are suffering many embarrassments, which finally lead to a visit from the police. But in the nick of time Bill returns with the missing garments, though what he has done to them, under any other circumstances, would have cost him his job.
- The Duke de Touche is wanted by the police. He and his confederate, Lotta Kale, have been hiding at a hotel resort. Miss Kale learns that a detective is on the trail of the duke and warns him to get away. He, however, not caring to leave the place where business for the two crooks is good, decides to have his beard shaved off so the detective will not recognize him. He goes to Beppo the barber, who does a neat job. The Duke informs Beppo that he is returning to Europe. The rich Miss Kale long has fascinated the ambitious barber from a distance. He now plots to win her. Disguising himself in a beard, Beppo goes to the hotel, meaning to impersonate the Duke. However, he mistakes Fay, the manicurist, for the heiress and gets in deep before he discovers his blunder. The barber is accused of the villainies of the real Duke. He sits on a freshly painted bench and is forced to borrow the first pair of trousers he can find. They happen to belong to the Duke. Beppo is arrested with his pockets loaded with valuables. But the Duke makes the fatal mistake of accusing Beppo of having stolen his trousers. Then the victim owns up that said garments are not his, and proves, to all concerned, that he is indubitably only a barber, and the Duke pays the penalty.
- Casey, the policeman, has everybody bluffed except his wife, who rules the house and lords it over Casey. Pedro runs a fruit stand on Casey's beat, and Nina, sweetheart of the former also sells fruit. Casey eats Pedro's fruit and refuses to pay. Then he starts a flirtation with Nina, who likes it. Pedro, who is a member of the Black Hand, determines to be revenged. He sends Casey a note, demanding $500, or the Black Hand will take his life. Casey sees in this a good chance to get rid of his better half. He changes the world "life" to "wife," and shows her the letter, telling her that she would better disguise herself and keep out of sight Then he returns to Nina and continues his love-making. Pedro, enraged, captures Casey and locks him up in an old mill. But Nina runs to the police and offers to lead them to the rescue. The wife, missing Casey, also appeals to the police and is invited to go along. When Nina sees his wife rush into Casey's arms she is with difficulty restrained from attacking him. Mrs. Casey learns the truth about the Black Hand note. Her spouse is stripped of his uniform and dragged home to punishment.
- A wealthy young man and his clerk discuss their engagements with the mutual interest of all lovers. By accident they exchange engagement rings. When the rich man's sweetheart discovers that he has given her a cheap imitation she breaks the engagement. After much amusing trouble everything is straightened and happiness is restored. Fay Tincher is seen as the clerk's sweetheart, her lover being Elmer Booth. Chet Whitney plays the role of the rich lover. A good comedy well acted. - Motion Picture News 1915.
- Bill the office boy wants the boss to get an electric fan so he warms the thermometer up, and makes him think it is very warm. The fan is brought and put in Bill's room by mistake. Jimmy, the electrician, teaches Bill how to gamble with the fan by numbering the blades. The idea works out well, though there is going on in the Boss' office a conference between Trust Magnates, and the Boss would like to know why the fan hasn't arrived. Various other office boys join the little game outside, for nickels, and one loses under what he thinks is fraud. So he goes downstairs and complains to a policeman, who comes upstairs to raid the game. In the meantime, it has ended in so loud an argument that the Boss has come out and found the fan, and taken it into his private office. There the Magnates see the numbers on the blades and Bill is sent for to explain them. He does so, and the Magnates get interested and open a game themselves, to Hadley's disgust, he wanting them to attend to business. At the thick of their game, when they, like the office boys, begin quarreling, the policeman breaks in and comes near arresting them, being persuaded not to only by Hadley's entreaties and something else. The policeman goes out, mollified, and Bill is made to clean the numbers off the fan, after which business is resumed, and Bill is sent out, to count up his earnings.
- With the opening performance a fizzle, the members of Nightingale Light Opera Company are decidedly on their uppers. Smiley and the tragedian, however, decide upon a plan whereby they may eat and drink. After the tragedian has finished a thirteen-course dinner in the city's best restaurant, Smiley enters and bangs him on the head with a wicked looking club. The tragedian hurries from the restaurant to chase his assailant and incidentally forgets to pay his bill. The same trick is played elsewhere successfully. Finally the tragedian and Smiley are discovered by their irate dupes reinforced by two of the village cops. A long chase follows and at the finish Smiley and the tragedian get theirs. - Reel Life, 25 July 1914.
- Gillespie, a multi-millionaire, has Harry Gregg, a penniless young painter, come to his home to do a portrait of his daughter, Maisie. The result is that Maisie and the painter fell in love. Harry bravely asks the father for her hand and old Gillespie promptly orders him out of the house forever. Harry goes home and decides to auction off his studio effects and pictures and leave the city. That night two thieves break into the millionaire's home and steal the Gillespie diamond necklace, a very valuable heirloom. The alarm is given and one of the thieves, thinking he is to be caught, slips the necklace between the frame and canvas of Maisie's portrait. Both thieves, however, escape. The next morning Gillespie, in an extra fit of anger over his misfortunes, orders Masie's picture to be returned to Gregg at once. Confederates of the thieves see the removal of the picture to Harry's studio. The two thieves have had a fight over the affair and each one sets out separately to the studio to get the picture. When they arrive the auction is on and poor Harry's first picture has just been knocked down for one dollar and ninety cents. Harry has left the room in despair. The auctioneer next puts up Maisie's portrait and the two thieves begin to bid against each other. When the bidding reaches four and five hundred dollars the public present begins to sit up and take notice. Bidding becomes general and soon the room is crowded to the doors with people wildly bidding for the picture. The portrait is knocked down to one of the thieves. Harry comes in and finds out that Maisie's portrait has been sold. He tells the auctioneer that it was not for sale and starts out after the purchaser. Meanwhile the high bidding started by the two thieves has "caught on" and people are wildly bidding on the next picture. Harry meets the thief in the hall and asks for the picture to be returned, saying that its sale was a mistake. The thief argues a moment, then seeing that Harry is deadly in earnest, he starts to run. Harry runs after him. They grapple over the picture. A fight ensues. The other thief, angry at his accomplice for getting away with the picture, telephones Gillespie that the necklace was in his daughter's portrait. Gillespie and Maisie get in an automobile and start for the studio. They arrive in an awful jam of people. Gillespie makes his way to the auctioneer and learns that the picture has been sold. He tells Maisie, adding that that is the kind of a lover he was, selling her portrait to the first buyer. Maisie is heartbroken. Just then a shot is heard. Everyone runs out. They find Harry lying in a pool of blood in the basement, but with Maisie's portrait in his arms. Explanations are made, the necklace is recovered, and Gillespie and Maisie help Harry to his feet. Just then the auctioneer comes up with a hat full of money received from the auction, which, except for the thieves, would have been a dismal failure. The money has a proper effect on father's feelings, and he gives Maisie and Harry his blessing.
- Henry is a high-class crook. He will stop at nothing. One day, walking through the park, he sees a newsboy. He knocks the boy down, confiscates his papers, and sits down on a bench to read. Presently, the following meets his eye: "Heiress Is Willed Another Fortune. Ethel Van Rocks to Get $1,000,000 the Day She Chooses Husband." This is right in Henry's line, and he swears that Ethel Van Rocks shall be his. He steals a bouquet and starts for the heiress' mansion, where he is shown into the parlor and told to wait. When Miss Van Rocks makes her appearance, Henry suffers a shock. She is carried in the arms of her maid, and she is just eighteen months old. Nothing daunted, however, Henry fells the maid and escapes with Ethel. Disguising her in a long linen duster, a hat and a veil, he starts for the house of a minister of his acquaintance who is deaf and almost blind. The police, however, are now on the tracks of the kidnapper. Ethel drops her rattle, by which she is traced to the parsonage. There she is rescued and Henry is hauled off to jail.
- The Stenogs decide to give a ball and call upon Ethel to use her influence in getting Mr. Hadley to be the guest of honor. After finally consenting he sends Bill out to procure him a proper masquerade costume and notifies his sweetheart that he will meet her at the dance, at the same time describing his costume so she will recognize him. In the meantime, Ethel's fellow calls and would like to take Ethel but has no costume. Bill, quick to think gives him Mr. Hadley's and runs around to get Hadley another one. At the dance, Ethel's fellow is taken for Hadley and Hadley is taken for Ethel's fellow. Complications reach a serious stage when it comes time to unmask. After much trouble Bill explains how it came to happen and Hadley decides that in the future he will let the Stenogs have their dance without him.
- Ketcher, a professional dog thief, steals a valuable dog from Mrs. Dapper and after that everybody gets involved, including Mr. Hadley, Ethel, Ed, her sweetheart, Bill and the cop. The intricate action consists in the rapid and surreptitious switching about of several stolen dogs by the clever Ketcher, until nobody can tell which dog is whose, and everybody is accusing everybody else of being a thief. The police court is helpless to disentangle the mix-up. But in the end Mrs. Dapper gets back her dog. Ethel and her young man are reconciled, and as a finishing touch, a fierce bulldog fastens himself to Bill's trousers.
- Fay, owing to her unattractiveness, fail to win the boys. Seeing the success with which her sister breaks hearts, she becomes morose and despondent. Later, at school, she makes a confidant of the teacher of physical culture, who takes a personal interest in Fay. and tells her of her unrequited love. The teacher assures Fay that if she will promise to follow her instructions things will be different and her happiness will be complete. Fay starts in to win her goal, and after much patience and perseverance, during which many funny complications arise, she accomplishes her purpose and has the satisfaction of turning the tables on those who at first would have nothing to do with her.
- Bill's boss decides to give Ethel a vacation. To show his appreciation for her faithful attention to business he stakes her to forty "megs." Ethel immediately starts off with the forty to show Newport what life really is. She is not long winning a millionaire widower, who quickly proposes; she accepts and goes forth to wire the boss, Hadley, that she is tired of his dictation and henceforth will have no more of it. Hadley becomes frantic on receiving the message and hustles Bill off to locate Ethel and bring her back. Bill locates her just as she is about to dine and he, feeling the pangs of hunger creeping over him. decides to butt in on the big feed. Alas, Bill "spills the beans" as usual; the millionaire decides that Ethel is not the one to choose for a life partner. He excuses himself for a few moments and decides not to return. The waiter must have his check, and Bill, being broke, the big haul comes on Ethel, who has to separate herself from thirty-eight of the big forty. After paying the check she decides that Bill and the office are more attractive to her than Newport and the "Four Hundred."
- Bill, being careless about his duties, the boss arranges a set of rules for his observances. Bill and his pals, therefore, decide to right their wrongs and organize a union. They chip in a nickel apiece and buy themselves badges with the money. The vice-president of the union loses his job the next day, and calls on Bill to call a strike on account of his being discharged. They demand Izzy's job back, and threaten to strike if he is not taken back. They parade through the building and Bill's boss has the fire department turn the hose on them. They are disrupted and dragged back to work in disgrace.
- Fay is employed in a dry-goods store and engaged to young sculptor Roderick. Boulter, the store floorwalker, is determined to break the engagement and win Fay for himself. Fay is indifferent to Boulter's threat that he will cause her to lose her job. She should worry; Roderick will protect her. On a certain occasion, Fay's trust in her dear Roderick is shaken when she sees him in the park giving his attention to a young girl named Margy. Boulter consoles Fay and she, anxious to get even with Roderick, pretends to be sweet on Boulter. To her disappointment, Roderick does not see the pretended flirtation. Fay is angry and when Boulter gets too fresh. Fay slaps his face. Her job is now not worth a cent. Boulter only awaits an opportunity to "get something on her." Roderick gets a note from Fay telling him it is all off. Fay refuses to see him. Margy does some shopping at the store. A shoplifter is watching an opportunity at Fay's counter. Fay is attending to Margy. Margy lays down a $10 bill to pay for a pair of stockings. The shoplifter gets the ten and puts it in a stocking, one of a cheap pair, and gets the boy at the wrapping desk to tie them up. Margy misses her $10. A dispute follows. In the excitement the shoplifter leaves with Margy's bundle of silk hose and Margy, after getting her change from the angry proprietor, leaves with the package of cheap hose, which also contains her $10. It happens that the boy at the wrapping desk forgot to break the string on the package Margy is carrying. The string unwinds for several blocks, until Fay sees it. Margy has set her package down for a moment. Fay starts to pull the string back. Margy chases after her package. Things look bad for Fay. The proprietor has told her that she must replace the ten dollars or be discharged. Fay continues to pull the string and Margy loses track of her bundle. A fat man steps on the string and breaks it. Roderick, on the way home, finds the package. He takes it to his room. Fay is discharged after refusing the aid of Boulter, who offers to make good the $10. She goes to Roderick to give him back his ring. Margy has gone to Roderick's room to tell him about her loss. Roderick opens the package he has found. Margy is satisfied that they are her stockings. Fay arrives in time to see Margy, Roderick and stockings. She returns the ring. Fay's troubles are cleared up when Roderick tells Fay that Margy is his cousin. They find the $10 in one of the stockings.
- Ethel and Ed are engaged and Ed promises to take her to a swell café for lunch. On the way to meet her at noon, Ed is stopped by a young lady who is having trouble starting her new auto. Ed offers to help her. He gets into more trouble than he expected, but finally gets the car started and the young lady, believing Ed to be a wonder around autos, begs him to drive her home. To be polite, he does so, but unfortunately Ethel sees him getting into the auto and driving away. She believes Ed has deserted her. After escorting the young lady and her machine home, Ed rushes to the office, realizing that he is late for his engagement with Ethel, hie finds her in a fury and is unable to square himself. She gives back the ring. It happens that Bill, the office boy, has eaten too much lunch and, having heard the quarrel between Ed and Ethel, he is inclined to fall asleep. Bill wakes up to the fact that he is madly in love with Ethel. He proposes to her and she accepts him, more to spite Ed than anything else. Bill leaves a note to Hadley, his boss, to the effect that his office force is going to get married. Bill and Ethel have some trouble getting a license because Bill is so young, but he manages to get away with it by using stilts and a mustache. Hadley gets the note and notifies Ed. They rush to prevent the wedding but arrive too late. Ed is almost frantic and chokes Bill nearly to death. Luckily Bill wakes up about this time and finds that he has been dreaming. Ed manages to square himself with Ethel.
- Horde, a gentleman smuggler, receiving a tip from his confederate, Swagger Tim, that he is to be arrested on leaving the ship, contrives to conceal some uncut diamonds in the handle of Mrs. Riche's umbrella. As it happens, the ship's officer sees him, and though the custom's inspectors can find nothing on Horde and are obliged to let him go at the wharf, the officer advises Schly, a detective, about the umbrella, telling him to keep his eye on Horde. The next day, at home, Mrs. Riche asks her maid, Tootner, to glue on the loose handle of her umbrella. The maid, on finding the uncut diamonds, and supposing the handle to be "all busted" inside, dumps the fragments into the waste basket. Then she fastens on the handle and puts the umbrella in the rack. Mr. Riche comes downstairs and takes the umbrella out with him. While standing unsuspectingly on the steps, he is watched by Horde from across the street. Schly, the detective, \\behind a tree, is watching Horde. Meanwhile, Swagger Tim has entered the house and is trying to recover the gems. Tootner hears him in the dining room and sees him start toward the hall. Mrs. Riche, at the same minute, goes into the hall closet for a coat, and the maid, a moment later, taking her mistress for the burglar, slams and locks the closet door. She tells Mr. Riche that she has caught the thief and he comes inside to phone the police, leaving the umbrella on the porch. Horde makes a dash, gets the umbrella, but is caught by Schly. Meanwhile Swagger Tim is hiding. The police arrive, and when the closet is opened and Mrs. Riche released in a fainting state. Tootner is fired on the spot. Swagger Tim, in trying to escape through a window is captured by Schly, who drags both smugglers before the Riche family and explains to them about the umbrella. On pulling off the handle, however, no diamonds are to be found. Then Tootner remembers. She rushes to the waste basket. The diamonds are recovered, and Tootner is handed back her job.
- The office is being picketed by a small mob calling themselves the WWW (We Won't Work)who are wobbly-like anarchists. When Bill the office boy is asked by phone to get some money out of the safe to bail out his boss, he forgets the combination, and has one of the radicals help him dynamite the safe open.
- Ethel's sweetheart makes her a present of a large bottle of perfume. Bill and Izzy hit upon the brilliant scheme of filling empty bottles and selling them for spring water. But when they turn the faucet they discover that the odor is not precisely what might be expected from nature's crystal wells, so they steal Ethel's perfume and doctor their bum goods. It chances that another office holder, who has bought water from Bill and Izzy spills some on his coat. His wife notices the odor, and becoming suspicious, she traces it to Ethel. Ethel does a little detective work, and the two office boys are caught in the act. But his latest venture costs Bill his job.
- Ed, Ethel's beau, going out in the morning, accidentally leaves behind him a note from Ethel asking him to take her to luncheon that day. Ed's mother finds the note and thinking it is intended for Ed's father proceeds to look into matters. Meanwhile, Ed has called on his father to announce his intentions of marrying the fascinating stenographer. But father cannot see it at all. Ed calls for Ethel and they go to luncheon. A few minutes later, his father enters Hadley's office meaning to talk Ethel out of the match. Seeing a client of the lawyer's leaving the place, he follows her, believing her to be Ethel. She chances to enter the same restaurant where Ed and Ethel are. Ed, seeing his father coming, slips under the table, and is delighted to hear father entering into animated conversation with Ethel, who evidently is making a hit. Meanwhile, Ed's mother has traced her husband to Hadley's office. Learning that Ethel has gone out to luncheon with a gentleman, she hastens on to the café. At her approach, it is father's turn to get under the table, where he and Ed are brought unexpectedly face to face. Ed Sr. gives his consent to the match, and in return Ed Jr. squares things for father with mother.
- Mr. Hadley is sought by a heart-sick bride who pleads with him to secure her a divorce. Ethel, meanwhile, has been invited out to luncheon by a new beau. She returns with a necklace which he has presented to her, and when the unhappy wife emerges from the private office, she instantly recognizes Ethel's latest ornament as the jewels which her faithless husband had stolen from her that very morning. She hastens to enlighten Ethel, and they conspire to lure Mr. Jones to the office to visit the stenographer. He rises to the bait, and then Ethel uses her powers on him to such good purpose that Hadley, watching with the wife from the inner office, considers the evidence sufficient to start divorce proceedings at once.
- A customer enters a barber shop and asks for a shave. The barber starts the process, lathers his face and begins to strop the razor. An organ grinder stops in front of the shop and starts to play a "Turkey Trot." The music is so inspiring that the barbers cannot resist it and begin dancing. This so infuriates the customer that he chases them out of the barber shop with a razor in his hand. In their mad flight the barbers upset the organ grinder, scare a number of policemen, break up a woman's suffrage meeting, drench a dude in a watering trough, deluge two milkmen in forty quarts of milk, and give a negro woman a bath in the tub with her washing, The chase is brought to an end when the customer catches up with a barber who has fallen exhausted on the ground, and insists that he finish shaving him right where he is.
- Mrs. Byers takes a trip to the country, leaving her husband at home. The poker sessions Bill Byers has with the boys nightly are something fierce. When Wifey notifies Bill by telegram that she is going to return, Bill and the boys put the house in order as best they can. Next morning, Bill, on his way to the office, loses his keys, and when he finds them gone returns home and upsets everything looking for them. He has to climb in the front window and is seen by two plainclothes men and promptly arrested, although he strenuously objects. Meanwhile, Bill's wife arrives, and seeing the house all upset, goes to Bill's office to tell him, and is informed by the office boy that Bill had been there and gone in an excited frame of mind. Satisfied that something terrible has happened she at once seeks the police. Dusty Dawkins, a hobo, finds the keys where Bill has lost them and seeing on the key tag that a reward will be given for their return, at once starts for the address to return them, and claim the reward. He finds the door open and no one about, so he enters and makes himself at home. While Dusty is enjoying himself, Mr. and Mrs. Byers return home, she having explained to the police and had Bill released. They seize Dusty and are about to hand him over to the police when he returns the keys and is forgiven. Dusty is about to depart when Mrs. Bill discovers the wine bottles and playing cards that Dusty had taken from their hiding place in the piano. She immediately suspects something and upon making an investigation herself, finds that Bill has been enjoying himself instead of passing the lonely evenings in work at the office as he had informed her in his letters. Enraged she lectures Bill while Dusty makes his escape through the window.
- George is a terrible sleepy head. It is a great deal of trouble for his landlady to get him up in the morning. One evening he returns home and informs the landlady that he must be at the office of a certain broker at 9 a.m. sharp the following morning, as he has a package of great importance to deliver. The next morning arrives and after several attempts to get George out of bed, the landlady at last succeeds. Meanwhile George's boss, who gave him the package to deliver, has received a letter telling him not to invest the money and is waiting for George's return to the office. He cannot stand the strain any longer and rushes out to the house where George resides. Arriving there he is just in time to find the landlady throwing George out the front door. George hits the boss and knocks him down. When they both get on their feet George tries to explain why the package of money is still undelivered, but the boss is so overjoyed that the investment has not been made that he gives George a week's salary and a week's vacation to get some sleep.
- Nell and Ben are happily betrothed until the advent of Austin Force. Austin's flashing black eyes and silky jet mustache cause Nell to throw over Ben and promise to marry her new admirer the following afternoon. Nell's Aunt Ellen goes to the jeweler's and buys a beautiful necklace for the bride-to-be. Austin spies her. As the mysterious bridegroom's vocation is taking other people's things, and as he is ignorant of Aunt Ellen's identity, he shadows her home and resolves to pay her a midnight call. Austin enters the house and secures the necklace. Nell, who is spending the night with her aunt, surprises him, however. As it is dark, they fail to recognize each other. Austin is obliged to slap Nell's face in order to make his getaway. The following day Austin gives the necklace to Nell's father with instructions that it shall not be presented to the bride until time for the ceremony. Nell appears with the fingerprints still on her face. Austin realizes that if the aunt identifies the necklace it will go hard with him. He tries many ruses to recover the gems before her arrival, and to prevail upon Nell to wash her face. Ben's suspicions are aroused. He does a little detective work, the guilty Austin is exposed, and Nell takes refuge in Ben's arms.
- A fire-eating Italian is inclined to neglect his wife and spend most of his time buying wine for chorus-girl Trixie. The Italian's wife notifies Hadley, her lawyer, that she wishes to have divorce papers served on her husband as soon as Hadley is able to get evidence against the fickle man. Hadley instructs his stenographer Ethel to disguise herself as a man and follow the Italian to the café and watch his actions. Trixie, the chorus girl, happens to have more than one admirer, and one of these takes her to the café. The Italian sees this and almost starts a riot, but the frightened admirer saves his skin by turning Trixie over to his friend Ed. Then Ethel, in man's attire, arrives at the café and sees Ed--her sweetheart--with Trixie. Trixie thinks Ethel is a man and flirts with her; Ethel keeps up the flirtation to get even with Ed. Things turn about in such a way that the Italian, upon entering the café, sees his adorable Trixie in Ethel's company. A quarrel starts and Ethel's identity is disclosed to Ed. He comes to her assistance and Ethel has the pleasure of serving a summons on the Italian.