Summary
Ed Swinger, a penniless dreamer fresh from the lecture halls, crashes headlong into the gilded cage of post-war respectability when he pursues Dorothy, whose father, Silas, demands a ledger dripping with dividends before blessing any union. Cornered by the old man’s ledger-thumping tyranny, Ed spins a shimmering mirage: a corporate colossus dubbed “Swinger Enterprises,” its offices a borrowed telephone and a brass plate polished to blinding arrogance. The ruse swells like a carnival balloon—phantom stockholders, fictitious shipments of “imported asbestos novelties,” and a parade of bewildered clerks who suddenly discover themselves vice-presidents of nothing. Dorothy oscillates between dizzy infatuation and suspicion sharpened by her mother’s whispered warnings, while Ed’s best friend, a flapper-chasing goof named Breezy, leaks half-truths to the press and turns the hoax into front-page folklore. When Silas insists on inspecting the books, Ed stages a midnight farce of clacking typewriters, forged receipts, and a hired brass band to impersonate a bustling factory. The charade collapses in a dawn raid by creditors who were never supposed to exist, yet in the wreckage Ed’s ingenuity dazzles Silas more than any balance sheet could; the old titan, recognizing a kindred spirit beneath the fraud, blesses the marriage, insisting that imagination, if properly harnessed, outperforms capital.
Synopsis
In order to win the hand of the girl he loves, Ed Swinger creates a phony business to fool her father.
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