An ambitious shoe salesman, Harold, unknowingly meets the boss' daughter and tells her he is a leather tycoon. The rest of the film he spends hiding his true circumstances, in the store and later on a ship. Trying to deliver a letter, he later finds himself dangling high above the street on a building's scaffolding.
Charley needs $10,000 right away. Mrs. Schwartzkopple has inherited $2 million from her late husband and wants to marry a younger man. Mr. Blaylock, her attorney, sees a way to solve both their problems, and keep control of her $2 million.
A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to her ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.
When an aristocratic family and their servants are shipwrecked, the butler becomes their ruler.