After losing all his money gambling on horses, former newspaper reporter Barry Gilbert and "Doc" Norton break into a vacant mansion belonging to the Reitters for shelter from the rain. Just as the pair are settling in, Willetts and three other servants arrive. Willetts, the butler, does not know what the long-absent, but expected John Clark Reitter Jr. looks like, so he assumes that Barry is him. Barry decides to impersonate young Reitter, the black sheep son of a wealthy New York newspaper publisher, for a while when he learns the family will be away for weeks.