A wealthy manufacturer takes a vacation incognito and ends up working for his chief rival.

The Reeves Shoe Company and the Hartland Shoe Company have been friendly rivals ever since John Reeves and Tom Hartland fell in love with the same woman. Tom Hartland won her while John Reeves remained a bachelor, hiring his ambitious young nephew, Benjamin Burnett, as his general manager. After Tom Hartland dies, Reeves overhears Benjamin muse that he is slipping. Annoyed, he decides to go fishing in Maine and leave Benjamin to run the company without him, just to see how well he will do. In Maine, Reeves meets Jenny and Tommy Hartland, the two undisciplined children of his old rival. Disturbed by their careless lifestyle, Reeves pretends to be an old fisherman named John Walton and contrives to be taken to New York by the brother and sister. Once there, he sees that the Hartland factory is being mismanaged by Fred Pettison. He has himself appointed a trustee of the Hartland estate in order to force the Hartlands to take charge of their lives. Tommy starts to learn the business, and Jenny gets a job at the Reeves Company under an assumed name. Reeves helps Tommy run the business, making it successful again. After learning that Pettison is trying to sell the business to a syndicate at a profit for himself, Reeves fires him. Jenny and Benjamin have fallen in love, but when Benjamin discovers her true identity, he decides she was spying on the company and sadly breaks off their affair. At the last minute, Reeves straightens out everything, and the two companies merge.