Struggling young painter Ruth Elliott has written her Eastern friend Mildred Colburn that she has gained fame in the West as an artist. When Mildred stops to visit on her way to Honolulu, Ruth hires Peter Neyland to pose as her chauffeur for five hours. Peter is actually a wealthy young man who accepts the offer as a lark.

Roma Wycliffe, a high-spirited girl bored with the lavender-and-old-lace atmosphere of her Aunt Henrietta's estate, discovers that her grandmother was a gypsy and decides to become one herself.

Muggsy Mulane, a waif who wears boy's clothing, jumps a freight train to the country after Jimmy "the Eel," the leader of the gang of crooks with whom she works, is arrested. In the village of Cottonville, Muggsy befriends Aunt Sarah, whom she later discovers is Jimmy's mother. When Muggsy learns that the greedy Judge Cotton, who holds the mortgage on Aunt Sarah's property, is planning to foreclose, she threatens to blackmail him, and he relents.

Richard Bolton, a timid bookworm, is too shy to declare his love for the beautiful Helen. While she remains unimpressed, however, the Countess Wintershin pursues him relentlessly, to Richard's embarrassment and her jealous husband's dismay.

Jack Darling of the North West Mounted Police is ordered to track down and arrest murderer Alec Young, whose girl, Dancing Pete, performs in the Nugget dance hall. En route to Nugget, Jack meets Hope Ross, who is caring for her sister's baby. Although the two fall in love, the outlook for a happy romance appears hopeless, because he believes that she is a married mother, and she thinks that he is an outlaw.

Robert "Bob" Wesley horrifies his father, Admiral John Wesley of the Naval Advisory Board, by failing his examination at the Annapolis naval academy. Bob seizes the chance to redeem himself, however, when he overhears Hanson, the butler, plotting with German agent Count Von Ornstorff to deliver his father's plans for the Atlantic coastal defenses to German Baroness Von Hulda. In Baltimore, Bob meets the baroness' ship and, with the aid of an old college professor, makes her his prisoner. Having impersonated a woman in the college play, Bob disguises himself as the baroness, rendezvous with the spies, and obtains the plans.

Unattractive and poor Polly Gordon, is taken to the college dance by eligible Vincent DePuyster only as part of a fraternity initiation. Suitors flock to her, however, when she inherits half a million dollars from her aunt, but she grows cynical and dismisses them.

Patricia Parker, on the advice of her father, leaves her life as a chorus girl for the bucolic surroundings of Silas Wainwright, an old friend of her father's.

Mazie, a shop-girl of New York City's Little Ireland, goes to the aid of a young man in formal attire involved in a street fight. Though badly beaten, he bears a strong resemblance to Lord Lytton, the hero of a magazine story Mazie is reading in installments. Although he is, in reality, a soda clerk, Mazie permits his attentions, and together they read the "Sloppy Stories" yarn about English nobility.

Molly, a glamorous clothing model in New York, though yearning for a life of luxury, spurns the advances of her boss's son in favor of a shipping clerk, late of the backwoods.

Working as a wardrobe girl in a cheap traveling stock company, Mamie Judd secretly loves Jenks, the leading man, who scarcely notices the young girl. She saves Neal Selden, son of a small-town banker, from being accused of robbery and murder, acts committed by the company's manager and leading lady.

Rosie Cooper is a cashier in a cheap restaurant and among those she favors is ... Smith, the bakery boy. Rose is a 'wise kid' all right, but it takes her some time to see through a shiny young thin model gent... The girl entertains his advances because he means romance to her. But he proves his shallow character and Rosie is glad to turn to Jimmy, the bakery youth.