Nellie loves Ned. Her father won’t have Ned around the house and insists upon choosing Nellie’s callers. He finds Ned at the house one day and telephones to Freddie, a rather effeminate youth, asking him to call immediately. Freddie does and Pa makes Nellie talk to him while he engages Ned in conversation. Ned gets disgusted and leaves. Freddie in his awkwardness, steps on Nellie’s dress and tears it. That finishes him and he leaves. Father determines to get a real man for his daughter the next time and sends for Captain Fitzbugle of the town militia. The Captain calls and Nellie sees him. He boasts of his feats of courage to father, and pa thinks he is the bravest in the world. Nellie decides to have some fun with her father and the brave man in uniform and dresses in her father’s clothes, wearing a mask. She gets an old horse pistol and enters the room where the Captain is still waving his sword. She points the gun at them and they collapse. She makes the Captain stand on his head and he runs from the house with Nellie close at his heels, waving the gun. The Captain runs into a policeman who chases Nellie through the streets and back into the house. She runs into the parlor and the policeman is about to arrest her when father explains that the desperado, unmasked is his daughter, and the policeman, after taking the gun away from her leaves. Father seeing that he is unable to curb his daughter’s waywardness, writes Ned to call, hoping thusly to cure her had habits. Ned accepts the invitation and Nellie and he are reunited.