Fatty rescues Mabel twice: first, from the unwelcome attentions of a masher, then from a runaway observation balloon.

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 goes home after being humiliated by a masher whom her wimpy husband won't fight. The husband goes off to a bar and gets drunk. She buys a boxing dummy hoping it will inspire her husband, but when he returns he gets in a fight with it, taking it to be the ladykiller.

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.

A couple of tramps, down on their luck and hungry, decide to fake an exhibition boxing match for a promoter. Meanwhile, Pug, a good-hearted but boisterous fellow, takes on a gang of mashers who make unwanted advances to his girlfriend. Impressed by his abilities, the mashers decide to pass Pug off as Cyclone Flynn, the champion, and enter him in the boxing match. But the real Cyclone shows up, and he and Pug battle it out in the ring. Soon the fight progresses to include pistols, rooftop chases, and the Keystone Kops in hot pursuit.

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.

A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind girl. Her family is in financial trouble. The tramp's on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.