- Con-men Wallingford and Chester decide to pull the money from a small town by posing as business men looking for an opportunity to invest. With the town's money they build a factory to produce carpet tacks. Stockholders suspect this as a fraud, but Wallingford can convince them. Suddenly there is a offer of somebody to buy them out....—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>
- In the town of Battlesburg, Iowa, Blackie Daw is laying the groundwork for swindling the townspeople, ahead of the arrival of his partner, J. Rufus Wallingford. Wallingford arrives to great fanfare. He and Blackie form the Universal Covered Tack Company, incorporated at $500,000, and everyone in town is anxious to invest. Wallingford keeps up the charade by buying an expensive car (but not paying cash for it). He hires Fannie Jasper as his secretary. But she quickly realizes that Wallingford and Daw are crooks. Eddie Lamb is sent out to sell the tacks that the company has yet to manufacture. A factory is obtained, and Wallingford and Daw are set to clean up and make their escape. But the stockholders become suspicious and demand an accounting. Wallingford manages to convince them he is a financial wizard by buying options on real estate which previously had no value.
The crooks earn $150,000 through their real estate con, and plan to leave. But complications arise because each of them has fallen in love, with Wallingford falling for Fannie and Daw falling for local girl Dorothy Wells. The President of the Midland Valley Traction System arrives in town. He talks over business with Wallingford, saying he wants to expand his business line and proposes buying out the tack company. Wallingford asks for a million dollars, with half the money up front. Then Eddie Lamb returns with orders for more than a hundred thousand gross of the tacks. Wallingford and Daw become legitimately rich, and decide to turn honest. They become respectable millionaires, well-respected in Battlesburg, and settle down, happily married to their local sweethearts.
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