In this detective picture, Janet marries Raoul Newell but leaves him when she finds out he is a thief. However, when he comes to her and asks her to help retrieve some papers stolen from him by Mr. and Mrs. Giles, she agrees and goes to work for the couple as a maid. But in reality, Raoul is after the couple's jewels.
New York confidence man "Silk" Wilkins ingratiates himself with millionaire Lawrence Gray, knowing Gray’s wife and daughter Zelda were lost in a flood eighteen years earlier. After promising to find Gray's daughter, Silk returns to his boardinghouse, where he finds Alice Sheldon, broke and about to commit suicide. Silk convinces Alice to pose as Zelda Gray and then notifies Lawrence via a note placed in an almond shell that he has found the lost daughter. Lawrence treats Alice so kindly that when Silk demands payment from her on Christmas morning, she refuses. Lawrence, who has overheard the conversation, enters and laughingly reveals that he had known of the frame-up all along. Grateful to Silk for finding him a wife, Lawrence writes the confidence man a large check.
Gerry Simpson (Bushman) meets newspaper reporter Virginia Blake (Bayne) and, after learning that she has no use for the idle rich, decides to become a reporter and make Virginia believe he is poor in order to win her. Both are very happy until Virginia comes to believe that Gerry is responsible for a series of robberies that have occurred at fashionable functions. She goes to his apartment but is interrupted by Gerry's valet. Gerry arrives home in time to save Virginia from the wrath of the crooked valet and after the thief is brought to justice, Virginia, convinced of Gerry's innocence, promises to marry him.
Faro Black, the chief of the Gypsies, finds out that his son Faro and his girlfriend Egypt have gotten married. Infuriated, he tells that their marriage isn't valid, since Egypt is actually the daughter of wealthy Gordon Lindsay, who is on his way to the gypsy camp to claim her. The two promise to remain faithful to each other, but as time passes and she never hears from Faro, her love turns to bitterness.
A lonely wife runs off with a traveling actor, taking her boy with her but leaving her daughter behind. The boy, Byron Bennett, grows up, and is stranded back in Mayville with a theater troupe. To make enough money to get out of town, they teach the local fire department how to put on a play. While the village cutie Grace Jessup is being shown how to act, one of the troupe tries to seduce her. Byron, knowing what the lecher is up to, even if Grace doesn't, follows the pair and chokes the man senseless.
Upon striking oil on his farm, Silas T. Pettingill (Charles Eldridge) moves to Park Avenue at the behest of his social-climbing wife Maria (Kate Blancke) and daughter Helen (Emmy Wehlen). But like Jiggs in the comic strip, Pettingill never loses his common touch, and one evening he goes out on a toot with his new chauffeur Hubert Stanwood (Paul Gordon).
Captain Mills is jealous of Jim Clifford, his fellow officer at the British War Department, so he steals an important document in an attempt to make Clifford look bad. Clifford has to undergo quite a bit to get the papers back, and his adventures take him to several fancy weekend parties, including one on a yacht, which wrecks. He discovers that Mills gave the document to Grace Weston, who doesn't realize what she's got.