John Agnew, head of the Agnew Construction Company, is atheistic in his beliefs. He is constructing a dam, and his fortune is pretty well tied up in the enterprise. His wife, about to keep a dinner engagement, offers to remain home with him, but he coldly repulses her kindly offer. Hurt and chagrined, Mrs. Agnew goes her way. Agnew endeavors to interest himself in a book, but the effort is not a success. Nature finally asserts itself, and Agnew gives way to sleep. He dreams that he is in his office. His stenographer brings him a telegram which informs him that the unfinished dam has burst. Shocked, he shows the wire to the stenographer. Instead of sympathy, the stenographer gives way to hysterical laughter and hurries into the outer office. Agnew follows her, to find the clerks reading the telegram. He expostulates with his employees, but they give him the laugh, jeer at him. etc., dance merrily about him, then exit in a disorderly manner. He returns home. His wife receives the news in a jocular manner, and informs him that she can no longer remain with him. His servants, too, give him the laugh, and leave in a manner similar to that of his office force. He collapses on his library couch. His appeal to Mrs. Agnew changes her mind and she drops traveling bag and hat and ministers to her shaken husband. As the dream progresses, Agnew descends from affluence to dire poverty. His wife labors to keep him alive. His old manner asserting itself, he decides to brave nature and go forth to seek work. But each individual to whom he applies, from former business acquaintances to a bank president, turn him down, at the same time showing him how he antagonized them, or failed them at a time when his support was necessary to them. Reduced to the point where he is forced to accept manual labor, he secures a job with pick and shovel. But here, again, he loses for a politician, an old enemy, demands his discharge, and the foreman is forced to carry out the demand. Sick and discouraged, Agnew returns to his squalid home. Here he meets his landlady, a shrewish woman, who demands her rent, and threatens to put him and his sick wife out unless the rent is forthcoming. In the midst of this last calamity, Agnew receives a letter. The letter is from the man whose son he turned down, and encloses a trifle of money, with a few words of friendly sentiment. Also, he receives a call from the Salvation Army girl, who brings her food and stimulants for the ill Mrs. Agnew. Such coals of fire sear him deeply, and he drops, sobbing, beside his wife. We next find him, still asleep in his chair, his uneasy movements evidencing that his dream is disturbing his sub-conscious being. His wife, returning from her engagement, enters the library, registers her alarm, and gently awakens him. The butler and Mrs. Agnew's maid enter. Instantly Agnew's mind reverts to the period where these two jewels made undignified exits, and his cobweb-hung brain, or his effort to clear it, opens the way for a comedy situation. With his wife's assistance, Agnew succeeds in regaining his mental equilibrium. He relates the dream, and the picture ends with his complete surrender, his confession that he has seen himself as others saw him, and his good wife's demonstration of her approval and her loyalty.