A marooned socialite finds herself taking orders from the sailor she had snubbed before their shipwreck.

Doris Worthington, a beautiful, spoiled heiress, is being courted by Princes Michael and Alexander Stofani on her private yacht. Bored with aristocracy, she starts to pick on impoverished singing sailor Stephen Jones, by constantly reprimanding him on the job. One day while Stephen is playing with a tame bear that is on board, Doris insinuates that he is wasting his life and should be applying himself to working toward a captaincy. Stephen's response prompts Doris to slap him, and when he surprises her by kissing her, she fires him. Doris's uncle Hubert, who is engaged to her friend Edith, drunkenly causes an accident at the helm of the yacht while they are in a deep fog, causing the ship to run into a reef and capsize. As everyone rushes off the yacht, Stephen rescues Doris because she has hit her head and is unconscious. After they land safely on an island, the princes take credit for Doris' rescue. Everyone wants to assign the work of building a shelter and gathering food to Stephen, who, because he has been fired, refuses to take any more orders, and takes charge himself. He determines that "with a hammer and a saw, [he] could build a city." His charges dislike the idea of manual labor, however, so they go hungry while he makes himself a meal of cooked mussels and coconuts. Everyone finally gives in and gathers their own food, but Doris remains indignant and infuriated by Stephen's attitude. Wandering through the jungle growth one day, Doris gets caught in a lion trap built by Gracie, whose husband George has been conducting scientific research on the other side of the island. They release Doris and invite her to join them, but she decides to get even with Stephen, who had slapped her when she tricked him into giving her food. She borrows some clothes and tools and arranges for them to float past Stephen while he is on the beach. Stephen's "discovery" of tools and clothing swells his ego, and he builds an entire house in one day. Later that night, Doris and Stephen admit they are in love with each other, but feel mismatched. Two search boats arrive, and George and Gracie reveal that they had given the clothes and tools to Doris, so she could play a joke on Stephen. Angry at being duped, Stephen takes a different boat than Doris. While the princes try to meet new women on the ship, Doris realizes she misses Stephen and changes ships to join him, for better or for worse.