Sis is the maid in the Higgins home, adjoining that of Prof. Doolittle, a physical culture specialist. Sis takes up the study of "fysical culture" with disastrous results, for her throwing out of the medicine ball renders the Doolittle maid a subject for hospital treatment. Sis is then loaned to the Professor's establishment.
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.
A serving girl receives a telegram that she has come into an inheritance. The family she works for suddenly starts to treat her well, and several young men come to court her. Then she receives another telegram telling her the inheritances is only $25. All her new 'friends' desert her, except her poor boyfriend.
Instead of paying his landlady, a man invites a seamstress out for dinner. To tease him her colleagues appear uninvited at the restaurant. When the bill comes it is huge and costs the man all of his money, his watch and other belongings, while the seamstress doesn't even want him to walk her home. He goes home penniless and his landlady does not let him in: he has to sleep outside.
Jean Dupont, a captain of the Coast Guards, is in love with Marie, the daughter of a smuggler. Jean thinks her father is a respectable fisherman. One day, while Marie and Jean are taking a stroll near the coast, he receives an order to the effect that the smugglers are quite active in his district and cautions him to double his guard and to be on the lookout. This order is seen by Marie. She at once thinks of her poor father and makes an excuse to get away from Jean. She runs home, gets her signal lantern, hurries to the spot where her father waits for the usual signal of safety. Marie meets her father, who is returning with the smuggled goods. She informs him that the guards are after him. and pleads with him to allow her to take his coat and hat that she might lead the guards a wild goose chase so that he can reach home in safety. Marie is mistaken for a smuggler by Jean, and his guards. Jean orders his guards to shoot.
