Jack Hastings writes a letter to his sweetheart, Kate, to come to his assistance as Count Caesar de Valdez, a Bolivian merchant, is arriving from Europe with three shiploads of rye, and threatens to "bear the market." Upon the Count's arrival he finds a letter from Jack, asking him to his apartment. The Count calls and is held by Jack and Kate under the pretext that the place is a sub-quarantine station. They pretend that the Count is ill, take his temperature and force him to bed. To their great embarrassment the Count tells them that his ships are loaded with rice not rye.