Sink or Swim

Brick Hubbard, a "printer's devil", convinces his friend Sid Fletcher to invest in "The Gazette", a local newspaper. Sid pens an editorial that infuriates Ira Gates, a local banker and a power in the town-and who also happens to be the father of Vivian Gates, whom Sidney is in love with. To complicate matters, the bank is robbed and Sidney is suspected of the crime.

Luke attempts to sell books to a businessman and his wife.

Lizbeth Palmer is known as "The March Hare" among her friends, and the daughter of a Los Angeles millionaire, comes to New York with a chaperon to visit her aunt. After betting the chaperon that she can live on 75c for an entire week, she assumes the part of a flower girl in a restaurant and there makes a hit with young millionaire Tod Rollins, who invites her to his home.

Irene, a young girl from a small town, arrives in New York City determined to make it on the Broadway stage. She meets up with Cookie, a worldly chorus girl who takes Irene under her wing. When Irene falls for young Ronald, his rival Crane sets out to break up the pair so he can have Irene for his own-and he doesn't much care how he does it.

Aspiring newsreel camera girl Pat Clancy, is hired by her father, a publisher, to work on The Sun and causes Scoop Morgan, the paper's best cameraman, to quit in protest of the hiring of a woman. The Mercury hires Scoop, and there begins a heated rivalry between him and Pat. Pat gets a few lucky breaks and manages to get a beat on Scoop during her brief career. After she exposes the theft of a jewel from the turban of a visiting maharajah, she and Scoop are kidnapped by Clayton, the thief, and taken aboard his yacht. Rescued, she and Scoop find love and happiness.

After her father's death, little Briar Rose is taken in by the men at a lumber camp. The girl shows a definite preference for one of the lumberjacks, "Hell-to-Pay" Austin, so he becomes her new "father." Just as much as Hell-to-Pay takes care of Briar, she watches over him, and it is largely through her influence that he gives up hard drinking and needless fighting. Then, when Briar is old enough, she goes away to school and quickly falls in with the wrong crowd. Hell-to-Pay comes after her and takes her away from Doris Valentine, an adventuress who had been teaching Briar the tricks of the trade. When they are reunited, Hell-to-Pay and Briar realize that they are in love, so they decide to change their relationship from guardian and ward to husband and wife.

"Waffles," the waitress at "Coffee Dan's" hash-house, is selected by Bert Gallagher and Clara Johnstone, a pair of crooks, to be represented as a missing heiress whose story they have read about in the papers. "Waffles" herself believes the story, as she was orphaned early and remembers little of her childhood, and by adroit coaching is able to convince the estate's none too bright lawyers of the validity of her claim. With this unlimited money, poor little "Waffles" nevertheless has only three desires: to buy the little restaurant for her old benefactor, Shorty Olson, to publish the music written by her lover, Carl Miller, a young, eccentric, absent-minded musical genius, and to adopt the baby that a Mrs. O'Shaughnessy is too poor to care for.

A reporter and a detective team up to solve the murder of a nightclub singer who had been involved in a divorce scandal.

Adopted by the Kellys from an orphanage, Nancy is reared in dreadful surroundings and mistreated as the household drudge. She accidentally makes the acquaintance of Jack Halliday, son of a wealthy city family who is fishing near her home. When Mrs. Kelly beats Nancy for accepting the attentions of her husband, the girl escapes into the woods and conceals herself in the rear of Jack's car as he drives into the city.

When the painter Christopher Bean dies, some unscrupulous art dealers try to get several of his paintings cheaply from a family who have no idea of their value.

In honor of his return from abroad, Mrs. Worthington invites her cousin, Brian Hartley, to dinner that evening, but forgets to tell him she has moved from her old address. He goes to the old home where he is met at the door by Celia Thayer, a guest of the Holbrooks, who now occupy the residence. None of the family being at home, Ceclia admits him, thinking he has been invited to dinner. When her hostess does not arrive the two have dinner together and become quite infatuated. Later it develops that the house was robbed while Mr. Hartley was there and, of course, he is suspected.