The Rider family, who are wealthy, pool issues to prevent young Hugh Martin from ever being left alone with their delightful daughter, Dorothy, long enough to propose to her. The family fears that Dorothy might accept him, and, moreover, they consider Hugh Martin absolutely ineligible. Hugh is finally forbidden the house entirely, and then encounters a series of escapades in which he impersonates a paperhanger, who has been engaged to cover several rooms in the Rider mansion. He also makes up for several other disguises with farcical complications; still he is unsuccessful in his efforts to see Dorothy alone. About this time the ever-alert Rider family conceives the idea of sending their daughter to a fashionable rest-cure and sanitarium. He, however, feigns illness, and presents himself as a patient at the same sanitarium. Much to his amusement, the physician, on examination, tells him that an operation is at once necessary. He is thoroughly alarmed and tries to get away from his room by the fire escape. Ignorant as to location, and unseen by Dorothy, he hides in her room. It then develops that it was the patient in the room next to Hugh’s that was to be operated on, and not Hugh, and the physicians, discovering their first error, come to the conclusion that Hugh’s symptoms are those of incipient smallpox. This rumor is fruitful and drives out everybody, leaving Dorothy and Hugh alone in the premises. The dénouement comes in picture showing Dorothy and Hugh standing on the roof of the sanitarium, which is now surrounded by police and is in quarantine. The telephone, however, is still immune, and Hugh sends for a minister, who stands upon the roof of the building across the way, while the policeman acts as best man, and the marriage service is performed.