The Lion and the Girl

• 1916
• Other, Comedy

Joe Jackson is engaged in his usual vocation of avoiding toil when he becomes very hungry. Routed from the monkey cage at the zoo, he goes to a nearby brook and finds a fishpole on the bank. He casts, but the hook never reaches the water. It takes hold of a bulky handbag in the lap of a woman who is dozing on a park bench. Joe reels in and examines the contents of the bag. He is looking over a costly watch when a policeman interrupts him and sends him on his way. The woman recovers her bag minus the watch. Joe heads to a show where they lend money and sell clothing and other fine things. He exchanges the watch for a gay outfit and departs through the window when he overhears a conversation about a stolen watch. It develops that the timepiece has been given to his wife by one of the partners in the shop. Joe is well on his way before the truth is discovered and goes to the zoo. He arrives just as one of the girl members of a party has been thrown from a swing into the cage of a raging lion. Joe goes over after her, routs the lion and lifts the girl to safety. The girl is Claire, daughter of the woman whose watch was stolen. In the party is the son of her father's partner. He loves her, but Joe is now her hero. He poses as a count and their engagement is announced. The day of the wedding Joe appears without a ring and in haste father's partner comes from the store with one. He recognizes Joe instantly as the man who had obtained the outfit for the stolen watch. The case that follows leads to the top of a skyscraper. Father and Joe light at the top and the former drops to a lot of telegraph wires below. In the end Claire still wants to marry Joe, but he confesses that he is only a tramp and departs, leaving her in Leo's arms.