Bascom, very worried about business, decides to apply to Morgan, the big boss, for help. Morgan offers to throw the Aqueduct Contract in his way if he will influence his young daughter, Nell, to marry him. Bascom agrees, but later finds that Nell has engaged herself to Dick, a young reporter, and will have nothing to do with the boss. Morgan, furious, tells Bascom that now he will be ruined, indeed. By accident, Dick wanders into an East Side saloon where, in a private room, the boss meets his constituents. Dick overhears Morgan telling Hart, contractor, to meet him in the saloon at nine sharp as he is going to open all bids submitted so that Hart may make his lower than the others. Dick rushes back to his editor and tells him that he can secure a great graft story, but how. They hit upon the dictagraph. Dick plants it in the saloon and that night at nine is busy in a little upstairs room with the receiver at his ear busily jotting down notes. Nell is with him. The bids are brought to the boss by the commissioner’s clerk, one of his henchmen. Bascom’s bid is discovered to be the lowest of all and just as Hart is about to reduce his, the dictagraph wires are discovered and the boss dashes upstairs. Jumping upon Dick, he almost kills him when Bascom enters and saves the young chap’s life. He takes the two young folks home and Dick is preparing his article for the press when the boss, who has experienced a change of heart, enters and tells Bascom that his bid will get the contract. Nell thanks him and Dick, for her sake flings his “graft scandal” story into the fire.