New Yorker Harriet Putnam divorces Montgomery Putnam of London and goes with her father Fordyce to Europe. In London, Harriet's apartment curtains catch fire and her screams disturb the bath of her neighbor, Lord Cardington, Earl of Pawtucket. While dousing the fire with glasses full of water, the foolish earl falls in love. When Harriet returns home, the earl pursues her after conferring with his friend Putnam, who, as a practical joke, tells him to use American slang and assume the name "Montgomery Putnam." In New York, Fordyce's lawyer threatens to have the earl jailed if he does not pay Putnam's alimony. After Putnam's spinsterish sister Jane, her fiancé, Silas Hooper, her niece Ella, and Ella's fiancé, Arthur Weatherbee, come to the Waldorf-Astoria from Cleveland to get Putnam's permission to marry, the earl consents in return for money to pay the alimony. When Jane meets the earl and declares that he is not her brother, detectives chase him up and down the elevator shafts. Harriet, who has played along with the ruse, clears up the confusion and accepts the earl's proposal.