Bill is a rich miner but wants a wife. He advertises in an Eastern paper and receives a response from Nellie and Eleanor, but doesn't know it was sent as a joke. When he travels East to meet them, they have the cook pose as the writer of the response.
Spoony Sam is a veritable pest at Si Hawkins' farm, and the girls treat him as a huge joke. In a city cigarette factory there is a peach of a young girl, Fannie Fatima. She writes a note on one of the leaves of a book of cigarette papers, declaring she will wed the man who finds it.
Little Albert Mills, eight years old, reads in the paper the accounts of the abduction of children and holding them for ransom. He conceives the idea of playing the game on his little sister, Henrietta. He writes a note reading, "I have your children. Put four thousand dollars under the stone on front porch and I will bring them back. They are now hanging by the hair. Blue Beard." He then tells Henrietta to look the other way, and he takes her dolls out of the doll buggy and hides them in the garden. Then he places the note in the rural delivery mailbox at the front gate. A little later a young fellow brings an auto up to the gate and the children plead for a ride. After a little hesitancy he consents and the children are carried away to the park. Mrs. Mills misses the children and finds the note in the mail box. She takes the matter seriously, and gathering a lot of neighbors and a policeman, gives chase to the auto.
The manager calls in the director to give him one in a hurry. The director shows him several scripts, but they do not suit; so the director is compelled to call the scenario writer to have a play written in an hour. The director summons his company and reads the play to them; then tells them to make up, while he gives his plots to the stage manager. Being weary, he falls asleep in a chair in the center of the stage and dreams the following: A young girl, employed in an office, falls in love with the head clerk. The boss is a black mustached villain, who is also in love with the girl.
