Hubby and wifey are in love, but he's henpecked by her mother. A nip of whiskey gives him Dutch courage, and he storms out, declaring he won't be a domestic slave anymore. He heads for a park bench where a photographer mistakes him for a seated woman's sweetheart. The tintype of the two of them falls into the hands of the woman's husband, whose jealous rage frightens our hero. He abruptly leaves town, telling wifey he'll be away on business. Wifey doesn't need her house while he's away, so, unknown to hubby, she moves in with mom and rents the house to the couple from the park. When our hero returns home sooner than expected, the renter has another attack of jealousy.

During WWI pretty German master spy Helene von Lorbeer is sent undercover to London to live with the family of a high-placed British official where she is to rendezvous with the butler Valdar, also a spy, and help him transmit secret war plans back to Germany.

This early Chaplin film has him playing a character quite different from the Tramp for which he would become famous. He is a rich, upper-class gentleman whose romance is endangered when his girlfriend oversees him being embraced by a maid. Chaplin's romantic interest in this film, Minta Durfee, was the wife of fellow Keystone actor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.