The Strategy of Ann

An amusing bowling match between Messrs. Sauer and Kraut. The balls and pins are manipulated by an electric magnet and perform some queer antics. There is, of course, the usual roughhouse finish, with Ford and Mabel in the important parts. Good fun, without offense.

George is addicted to the flowing cup, and his friends all try to reform him. His intentions are good, but his will is weak and he cannot resist the companionship of bibulous friends. Drastic measures are resorted to, to cure him. One of his friends dresses as a woman, who presents a fierce aspect. When George awakens he is told that while under the influence of liquor he has married his woman, and she proceeds to assert herself. George is in a terrible mental state, but finally he sees the shoe of the "woman" who has forgotten to change those pedal protectors, and the scheme dawns upon him.

Fatty, his wife and mother-in-law are on a ferry to Catalina Island for an outing. So are Mabel and her father. Mabel and Fatty flirt with each other, and Fatty tosses her father overboard, thinking he is another suitor. The boat docks and the two go their separate ways. Mack Swain tries to pick Mabel up, too. All go to rent bathing suits, Fatty locks Mack in a dressing room with mother-in-law. Fatty and Mabel feed a large fish to a seal at the water's edge, and then engage in some graceful and comic diving. Swain, Avery, Durfee and Davenport see them diving and corner them...everyone's relationship to each other is revealed. —Ben Model, ben@silentclowns.com

A street cleaner who gets into a heated altercation with his superintendent. In the chaotic aftermath of the fight and while performing his daily rounds, the street cleaner accidentally steals a baby.

At the urging of his wealthy grandfather, Willie O'Donovan is sent to boarding school by his preoccupied parents, neither of whom shows much interest in the lad. At school, where he falls in love with Mary, a country girl, Willie hears that his grandfather has died and left him $50,000,000 to be managed by whomever Willie is living with on his eighteenth birthday. Mr. and Mrs. O'Donovan, who are in the midst of divorce, both hire private detectives to bring Willie back to them, but after a series of close calls, Willie manages to avoid the detectives and take refuge at the home of Mary's mother.

Mabel has two suitors, Smith and Jones. Smith is an elderly man who impetuously sweeps everything before him, and his dashing ways win Mabel's heart. Poor Jones is downcast when he learns that Mabel is to marry Smith, and follows Smith home. He learns that Smith is already married and has ten little children.

His subjects have been vainly petitioning the king for improvements in his reign, without avail. The king pays too much attention to the sweetheart of a country bumpkin who shows his resentment by chasing his royal highness with a pistol and perforating the royal legs. The king takes refuge in the top of a tree, from which ignominious position he is finally rescued by his courtiers. In consideration of the bumpkin promising not to tell the queen of this latest escapade, the king grants the petition of his subjects.

Making the best of her genteel poverty, our heroine prepares to attend the dance to which she has been invited, and, after surveying the general effect of her plain and somewhat passé attire, goes on her way with a painful self-consciousness to the home of her friend.

Lulu, the bishop's daughter, and Tom, the Duke of Bilgewater's nephew, are in love and want to marry. Their relatives oppose the marriage, however, because Lulu's marriage contract with a curate has been signed and Tom is engaged to his ugly cousin, Lady Mary. Lulu and Tom elope to America and look for work.

Hubby is anxious to get away for a little time at the beach with the boys, and works up a quarrel with wifey over a new hat, the bill for which he is asked to pay. Making this excuse, he goes off with his chums. The wife is an expert swimmer and diver and is invited to attend a meet of the ladies' swimming club, of which she was formerly a member. Her husband's treatment induces her to accept the invitation. The affair takes place at the very beach to which the husband hied himself. One may imagine that hubby has not only plunged into the cooling waters of the surf, but into domestic hot water as well.

The deacon's daughter, Betty, is in love with Harold Price. The deacon wants to buy a horse from Harry's father, but because Mr. Price will not give it to him at his own figure the deacon quarrels with Price, and forbids his daughter to see Harry. A troupe of minstrels, stranded, are walking back to New York, and Harry and Betty meet them. They make up as actors, and, accompanied by their new-found friends, rush to the deacon's home and tell him they are an eloping couple who wish to be married. The deacon ties the knot, and after the ceremony the make-up is removed, and he finds he has officiated at his own daughter's wedding. He finally sees the humor of the situation, and his charitable spirit is shared by Harry's father, who makes him a present of the horse he coveted.

This ill-tempered gentleman accompanies his wife to the seashore, but being so insanely jealous of her makes the stay there rather unpleasant. First of all, he refuses to go bathing in the surf with her, and she, despite his command not to, goes in alone. Towering with rage at his wile's defiance, he gets himself into several embarrassing positions. In fact he makes a fool of himself generally.

Hugh and Henry Watson, two brothers, are in love with Helen Mallory. She rejects Hugh and accepts Henry. Hugh, broken-hearted, goes west, leaving a note to his mother telling her the reason for his going away. Hugh is the apple of his mother's eye, and she grieves herself into a collapse and is dying with sorrow. Her sight fails her. Henry tells his mother that he will go in search of his brother.

Mr. Nelson is a "newlywed" and carries his darling wife's picture with him always. However, he almost falls for the temptation to go to the mask-ball, inviting an erstwhile lady friend to go with him, telling her that he would dress as a pirate and she to go as a Spanish gypsy. At the sight of his wife's portrait, however, he realizes his intended wrong-doing and changes his mind, asking a friend to go in his stead. The office boy mixes the letters and wifey gets the one he intended for the girl, and she goes to catch her erring hubby. So while hubby waits at home, wifey is keeping her eye on the bold, bad pirate she believes to be her husband.

John Ashby and Allene Houston, two neighboring ranchers, are in love, but their parents' violent dispute over the route of the new X. Y. Z. Railroad eventually drives them apart. Colonel Houston and the elder Ashby are killed in a fight, leaving John and Allene to continue the feud, John accepting a job with the railroad company and Allene swearing never to cross their property.