Henry Altimus

Many interested parties are after the loot from a factory payroll heist but the mobster who hid it has amnesia after undergoing experimental brain surgery in the prison hospital.

Happy O'Brien, called "The Microbe," or "Mike" for short, a female street urchin who sells newspapers dressed as a boy to avoid harassment, is saved from arrest for fighting other newsboys in Chinatown by wealthy author DeWitt Spense. DeWitt, there to purchase drugs, is so moved by Mike's pugnacity, that he takes her to his mansion for literary inspiration. When DeWitt learns that Mike is a girl, he resolves to educate her. As Mike blossoms, DeWitt's attentions turn to love, to the dismay of Judith Winthrope, who wants to marry him, and his friend Robert Breton, who, with Judith, convinces Mike that DeWitt's writing is suffering because of her.

A hardened criminal is transformed into a responsible member of society after he undergoes plastic surgery.

A district attorney uses psychology to expose a criminal gang by publicizing the prosecution of an innocent man.