Sheriff Ben Holden is in love with hotel owner Madge Malarkey when down-and-out carnival man Gabby Gilfoil shows up hoping to take her for some money. Gilfoil is mistaken for the wanted man Slippery Sawtelle. Neither suitor gets Malarkey but manage to take her husband (wealthy Simeon Trott) for a bundle.

Louie, the janitor of a large New York building, leaves New York for a small town to try to work out his formula for the "manufacturing of gold from baser metals."