Jerome N. Wilson

A man almost loses his fortune, not to mention his fiancée, to a society scion.

Betrayed by a man when she was a naive young girl, Honore hates all men and takes her revenge on every man she can. When she meets Gen. Durand--the uncle of the man who betrayed her--she sees a chance to ruin his whole family. Durand falls in love with her and proposes, and she sees her plan for revenge about to come to fruition. Then she falls for a young French soldier who knows nothing about her past. Complications ensue.

The film opens in Ireland, as a dying Patrick McNairne tells his daughter Jerry to go to New York and look up Norton Burbeck, a wealthy young man whose life Patrick had saved some time earlier (the surviving print, largely complete, lacks the second page insert of a letter explaining the full background). The affable Burbeck is due to inherit his uncle’s fortune provided he’s married by November; if not, the inheritance will go to his cousin Howard Curtis. An adventuress, Beatrice Gaden, and her husband Dick are in cahoots with Curtis: Beatrice pretends to be single in order to string Norton along up to the November date, at which time Curtis will come into the money and give a share to his unscrupulous partners.

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).