Five young men, hopeful and glorying in their strength, began buckling on the armor of the workaday world. The artist is for creative things; the doctor is aflame for science; the soldier observes the glories of the conquest; the hardy, wholesome farmer observes the advantages of useful life in supplying the world with substance; but, the financier tells how he will surpass them all in the accumulation of gold. With this engrossing incentive the picture follows his feverish ambition as he forgets his wife and family and soils the escutcheon of an honored name, with all joy in life subordinate to mere groveling after gold. He loses family and friends and grows more mean and miserly, until he finds himself in age, utterly alone, save for the valet he has schooled in his own mold. As he dreams alone by his fire he sees the group of early friends, and sees their success in the wider things of life. It so moves his conscience that he flings into the fire his only friend, money, and falls back dead. Then his miserly valet rushes in and wailing, snatches the charred remnants of a wasted life from the flames.