Lizette loves Jean but a 10,000 franc dowry insisted upon by Jean's father is keeping them apart. Paul, Lizette's "black sheep" brother, begs that she gives him her saved money so he can increase it for her - at the gaming table!! He does win but there are a few who are determined he shall not reach home with his money. Paul also suffers from a bad heart and with the stress he feels from being set upon, he takes refuge at an inn. He seals the money up in an envelope addressed to Lizette Rouget but dies before he can deliver it safely to her. Lizette is now destitute, Jean having long ago deserted her but the ghost of Paul continues to haunt the inn's bedroom to guard the money from "unworthy hands".

Mr. Clayworth, a wealthy American and self-made man, has a daughter Bessie, who is determined to marry a foreign title much against her father's wishes. She has an American suitor, William Brooks, who is deeply in love with her but he is given little encouragement. Mr. Clayworth plans to discourage his daughter with nobility and accordingly goes to an employment agency where he engages three foreign menials to impersonate noblemen, supplying them with evening clothes and arranging to have them call at his house that evening. Bessie is overjoyed when she learns from father that three noblemen are to honor them with their presence. Father incidentally suggests that if the noblemen do not come up to her expectations to patch up her little quarrel with Billy and say no more about marrying a title. The fun begins when the three bogus noblemen present themselves at Clayworth's house as Duke Macaroni, Lord Brien Berue and Baron Hasenpfeffer.

An early Thomas Edison short. A young woman is kidnapped while attending a play in Chinatown. A reporter attends another play in Chinatown, is likewise kidnapped and rescues the young woman. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011 in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation New Zealand Project.

While their degenerate descendant sleeps, ancestral portraits come alive and admonish him.