The plot is a satire derived from Hugh Antoine D'Arcy's poem of the same title. The painter courts Madeleine but loses to the wealthy client who sits for his portrait. The despairing artist draws the girl's portrait on the barroom floor and gets tossed out. Years later he sees her, her husband and their horde of children. Unrecognized by her, Charlie shakes off his troubles and walks off into the future.

Charlie is amidst a number of loving couples in the park. He parodies one couple by embracing a tree. A girl asks her beau for a love token. The beau steals a pocket watch from a sleeping man, Charlie gets it away from him and gives it to the girl. He later gets it back and tries to sell it to his original owner who calls a policeman. Many park visitors wind up getting tossed into the lake.

Mabel and her beau go to an auto race and are joined by Charlie and his friend. As Charlie's friend is attempting to enter the raceway through a hole, the friend gets stuck and a policeman shows up. Charlie sprays the policeman with soda until he friends makes it through the hole. In the grandstand, Mabel abandons her beau for Charlie. Both Charlie's friend and Mabel's are arrested and hauled away.

A hotdog girl gives one to a policeman who then allows her into a race track. While other customers swipe her hotdogs, Charlie runs off with the whole box, pretending to sell them while actually giving them away. She calls her policeman who battles Charlie.

Given an hour off from his job as a cafe waiter, Charlie rescues Mabel from a thug, is given an invitation to her home, and arrives presenting a card which falsely identifies him as the Greek Ambassador. Before he can get back to work, her parents invite him to a future garden party. Her jealous lover has Charlie followed back to the cafe. Charlie is a hit at the garden party but, as he leaves to return to work, the rival invites everyone to go with him to the cafe so Charlie will be exposed.

Charlie, competing with his rival's race car, offers Mabel a ride on his motorcycle but drops her in a puddle. He next joins some dubious characters in abduction of his rival just before the race for the Vanderbilt Cup. With her boyfriend locked up in a shed, Mabel takes his place. Charlie does what he can to sabotage the race, even causing Mabel's car to overturn.

Charlie talks wealthy farmer's daughter Tillie into eloping with him (and taking her father's money). In the city Tillie gets drunk and lands in jail while Charlie runs off with her money and his old girlfriend Mabel. Later Charlie reads that Tillie (now working as a waitress) has inherited the estate of her multi-millionaire uncle. Charlie dumps Mabel and talks Tillie into moving into her uncle's villa, and Mabel arranges to become a housemaid there. The uncle (never really dead) returns and summons the police to have them all thrown out.

Charlie and a rival vie for the favors of their landlady. In the park they each fall different girls, though Charlie's has a male friend already. Charlie considers suicide, is talked out of it by a policeman, and later throws his girl's friend into the lake. Frightened, the girls go off to a movie. Charlie shows up there and flirts with them. Later both rivals substitute themselves for the girls and attack the unwitting Charlie. In an audience-wide fight, Charlie is tossed from the screen.

Charlie is an actor in a film studio. He messes up several scenes and is tossed out. Returning dressed as a lady, he charms the director. Even so, Charlie never makes it into film, winding up at the bottom of a well.

Out of costume, Charlie is a clean-shaven dandy who, somewhat drunk, visits a dance hall. There the wardrobe girl has three rival admirers: the band leader, one of the musicians, and now Charlie.

In a hotel lobby an inebriated Charlie runs into an elegant lady, gets tied hup in her dog's leash, and falls down. He later runs into her in the hotel corridor, locked out of her room. They run through various rooms. Mabel ends up in one of an elderly husband where she hides under the bed. Enter the jealous wife and Mabel's lover.

Charlie and another waiter must become bakers when the regular bakers go out on strike. The strikers put dynamite in a piece of bread which is delivered to the cake counter. It winds up in the oven and explodes.

Charlie and another man compete in trying to help a young lady cross a muddy street. The rival finds a wooden plank which Charlie takes from him. They fight over an umbrella belonging to the rival. A policeman settles the dispute, ultimately arresting the rival. An innocent tramp is pushed into the lake.