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A Night in New Arabia Synopsis

Jacob Spraggins, veteran general of a breaker-boy-to-multi-millionaire campaign, is driven by a troublesome conscience into the ranks of the amateur Haroun al Raschids, who infest Bagdad-on-the-Subway. Donations to hospitals, charities and universities fail to bring him happiness. At last he traces his uneasiness to a piece of legitimate business whereby he swindled one McLeod out of property worth ten thousand dollars. Detectives find the grandson of McLeod, a delivery youth for a large provision store. To him old man Spraggins hands ten thousand dollars in bills. Impressed by the young man's insouciant independence, the money monarch makes further advances, even hints at the possibility of matrimony between McLeod and his daughter, Celia. But Thomas McLeod is already engaged to a parlor maid at a house on his round. Neither he nor Spraggins has any idea that the parlor maid is Celia, who has fallen in love with Thomas's whistling. She whistles, and the accomplishment has helped her from the social life of her father's financial class. Aided and abetted by Annette McCorkle, the romantic housemaid, Celia has donned cap and apron and set out to be loved for herself alone. She has succeeded. So the ten thousand dollar benefaction, having brought peace to the soul of the Caliph, proceeds to bring happiness to McLeod and Celia as well, for their financial way to elopement is now clear, and they go. Mr. Spraggins gives chase, but, recognizing the prospective bridegroom, adds his blessing. It would seem so far that this one benefaction had failed to harm the Caliph-ridden populace of New Arabia. However, a year later old Jacob Spraggins orders all his donations to charities canceled. The working girls can continue to work for all he cares. The sun must shine on the Sunshine Fund without the aid of his money. Celia has a child. The child, Jakey, must have an unprecedented fortune by the time he attains twenty-one. So Mr. Spraggins raises the price of all vinegar three cents. Moving Picture World, November 3, 1917

The Duplicity of Hargraves Synopsis

Old Major Pendleton Talbot of Mobile moves with his daughter Lydia to Washington, D.C., where he works on his book of reminiscences about Alabama, while Lydia scrimps to keep up appearances. Although the young government clerks ridicule the Major's dress, vaudeville actor Henry Hopkins Hargraves, the Talbots' boardinghouse neighbor, cultivates their friendship and listens attentively to the Major's stories. When a new Southern play opens, the Major splurges and buys tickets for himself and Lydia. Hargraves, playing the lead, imitates the Major's dress, mannerisms, and speech, and delights the audience, while infuriating the Major. He castigates Hargraves, who leaves, to Lydia's dismay. Later, when the Major is broke and refuses to seek a loan, an old slave from the Talbot plantation, Uncle Mose, arrives and gives the Major $300 which, he claims, is payment for a pair of mules which the Major's father gave him. The Major soon finds a publisher for this book, and Lydia gets a letter from Hargraves revealing that he, as Uncle Moses, repaid the Major for his help with the role.