Toys of Fate

Helen Corning, a rich "Yankee" widow's daughter, antagonizes her Southern neighbors when she speeds in her roadster. After she causes Brett Page's stalled Ford to overturn, Helen rams Judge Carroll's wagon, upsetting his eggs which fly into his whiskers. Furious, the Judge sends Helen to jail for thirty days. Brett, taking advantage of the town's ancient law that allows townspeople to hire prisoners for twenty cents per day, takes the uncooperative Helen into his home to cook and clean.

Broadway star Mona Mainard retires from the stage for marriage to rising attorney John Norton and watches his career climb. Over time she becomes concerned with his at times unscrupulous ways of getting convictions. When her brother is accused of murder Norton refuses to give up the case despite being aware of his innocence because a victory could land him the governorship. Mona takes extreme steps to bring him to his senses and exonerate her brother.

The Honorable Hugh Wentworth, arriving from England with a valuable diamond to millionaire Edward Ensloe. Ensloe's eldest daughter Eleanor has romantic designs on Hugh, but he is more attracted to her tomboy sister Peggy. Eleanor is concerned with fashion and society while Peggy prefers tomboy pursuits with her younger brother Bob.

The valet of Lord Harold Varden, on a secret mission to our Government, has been murdered. Dick Holloway, a reporter, detailed to the story, calls on Lord Varden just as the latter feels the effects of poison administered to him. He takes the place of the nobleman when his American cousins come for him, and not only saves his lordship's papers, but captures the spies detailed to get them.

Robert Frazer and Anna Q. Nilsson star in this drama, based on Temple Dusk by Calvin Johnson. David Marlowe (Frazer), the son of a clergyman (Frank Currier), is seduced by the earthly delights of drinking and gambling. While intoxicated he proposes to Ember Edwards (Nilsson), and she accepts because he has told her he is rich and she is sick of her poverty-stricken life. At a gambling house run by Clement Palter (Charles Lane), David takes a 25 dollar check from Bunny Fish (Robert Schable), changes the amount to 2,500 dollars, and proceeds to lose the whole sum at faro.

Husbandless Jane has her eye set on Willie but he is too bashful to take the initiative. To make him jealous, she creates a scarecrowl who happens to resemble the notorious bank robber Banker Bill. The constable, sure she is harboring the fugitive, is out to make an arrest.

A lonely wife runs off with a traveling actor, taking her boy with her but leaving her daughter behind. The boy, Byron Bennett, grows up, and is stranded back in Mayville with a theater troupe. To make enough money to get out of town, they teach the local fire department how to put on a play. While the village cutie Grace Jessup is being shown how to act, one of the troupe tries to seduce her. Byron, knowing what the lecher is up to, even if Grace doesn't, follows the pair and chokes the man senseless.

George Farrelly, the bored custodian of the safe-deposit vaults in a New York bank, is visited by his childhood sweetheart, Charity Garvice, who tells him that his blind old teacher, Martha Owen, has a premonition that something is wrong in George's life.

LOST FILM. A comedy in which Johan has no desire to meet the unmarried Sarah, and so has his friend Freddy pretend that he is Johan.

Mr. Bolten is hoping to woo the dancer Céleste and invites her for coffee. Her answer is that she will wait for him in hotel "Des imbeciles' in New York. He obviously cannot find the hotel, and to make matters worse he is robbed by a pickpocket. As a consequence he cannot pay his restaurant bill and is arrested. Luckily for him, a friend pays his bill so he can return home. There he picks up a dictionary and sees what "imbécile" means.

Jim Lassells travels to Africa to obtain proof that his cousin Harold Brooks is dead as rumored, and learns that an Algerian sultan killed the rich American. Since it is assumed that Brooks was childless, Jim inherits his cousin's fortune. At a slave market he buys a young girl named Perdita and sends her to a convent in Corsica to be educated. Years later, Jim meets Perdita again while traveling through Corsica with the impecunious Duchess of Westgate and her daughter, Lady Lilah Grey. When the party stops at an inn, Jim discovers that Perdita is not only a Persian princess, but also the long-lost daughter of Brooks, and therefore the rightful heir to Brooks' fortune.

Clover Ames's life consists only of the drudge work that she performs at her Aunt Sarah's boardinghouse. No longer able to withstand her aunt's abuse, Clover runs away and obtains a job as a maid to a wealthy woman. Willed $7,000 by Pierre Dubois, a boarder at her aunt's house, Clover, inspired by a novel that she has read, poses as a duchess at a fashionable winter resort. There she meets and falls in love with Walter Gray, who is also traveling incognito as a ribbon clerk. When Clover's money runs out, her trick is discovered and she vanishes. Obtaining employment in Gray's department store, Clover learns that her ribbon clerk is actually the owner's son, who rushes her to the wedding bureau.

A $5,000 wager is made between two prominent jewelers, Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Chandler, as to whether their most valuable jewels can be stolen. Thorpe, seeking to stack the odds in his favor, asks Police Commissioner James Stone, a business crony, to enlist the help of Diamond Daisy, a jewel thief who is trying to go straight. Posing as a rich heiress, she asks Mr. Thorpe to accompany her to show her father an expensive item of jewelry. Instead, Mr. Thorpe is detained in an insane asylum by a doctor who has been led to believe that Thorpe is Daisy's insane husband. Daisy absconds with the jewels, but a vindictive detective, who has been following Daisy, thinks the heist is for real and tries to arrest her. Eventually the commissioner intervenes and all ends well.

Thrown out of his dad's house without a penny to his name, playboy J. Dabney Barron is told not to return until he has proven that he can keep a job for an entire month. After several false starts, our hero is hired to keep flighty heiress Betty Arden out of trouble. He not only succeeds but manages to get his hands on a valuable jewel that has long been coveted by his father.

Mary, the three-year-old daughter of John Denby, a railroad president, is kidnapped, and all trace of her is lost. Fourteen years elapse. There has been a terrible wreck on Denby's road and Graham, the engineer, is made the scapegoat. In spite of the fact that he merely obeyed orders, he is sent of to prison. Mary is returned to Denby, the kidnapper explaining that he stole her when his own little daughter was killed, but that now he feels he must return her to her parents.