Plot

A tycoon goes undercover to ferret out agitators at a department store, but gets involved in their lives instead.

Department store owner J.P. Merrick finds that several of his employees are unionizing to get more money and better working conditions. In order to find out who the organizers are, he gets a job at the store as a shoe salesman. Not realizing his true identity, he's befriended by Mary Jones and Joe O'Brien, the two ringleaders, and Elizabeth Ellis, a charming older woman with whom he develops a romance.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>

J.P. Merrick, a wealthy department store owner, uses a pseudonym and takes a job at his store in order to find out who organized a union of his employees.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>

Tycoon John P. Merrick is startled to see an effigy of himself hanging on the front page of the New York Times, courtesy of union organizers at Neeley's Department Store, which Merrick didn't even know he owned. On a sudden impulse, he goes undercover there as a shoe salesman. Soon he's so involved in the lives of his fellow employees (especially one young couple and a delightful single woman his own age) as to forget his original purpose. But his two lives are on a collision course...—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets, and a minor one at that, is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, most of the employees' anger directed at Merrick, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to go undercover working at the store to mete out the rabble-rousers. Undercover as Thomas Higgins, Merrick gets assigned as a sales clerk in the shoe department, where he is taken under the caring wing of his colleague Mary Jones, who sees in Higgins a poor man needing the guidance of friends. One of those other friends is Elizabeth Ellis, who Mary sees as a possible "Mrs. Higgins". Mary's boyfriend is Joe O'Brien, the chief organizer of the employees, four hundred of whom are following Joe in the charge against the store and Merrick. At the store, Merrick not only wants the list of the four hundred, but also wants to change those things he doesn't like at the store, chief amongst those being his shoe department section manager, Mr. Hooper. But as Higgins, Merrick also begins to see things a little differently, specifically from an employee's point of view.—Huggo