Summary
In a hamlet stitched together by lamplight and lullabies, Garry Beecher—eyes bright as struck matches—trades the lilac-scented promises of his mother and the steadfast gaze of sweetheart Lorna for the tinsel mirage of Veronica, a shimmying chorus girl whose laughter ricochets like silver coins on marble. The pair elope to the electric Babylon of the city, where skyscrapers rise like hypodermic needles against a velvet sky; there, amid jazz-soaked speakeasies and ticker-tape constellations, Garry discovers his paramour draped across the lap of a marble-cool millionaire. Pride flayed, he slinks home, rifles the safe of his former benefactor, and re-enters Veronica’s orbit on a gilded tide of embezzled cash. Opulence devolves into prodigality: champagne cascades over balconies, roulette wheels devour inheritances, and a diamond necklace—icy rope of stars—becomes the noose that cinches when coffers run dry. Veronica, ever the pragmatist, whispers his name to the police; Garry is shackled, condemned to a decade behind stone and rust. From a prison bunk he pens counterfeit letters—dictated by loyal Lorna—to console the mother who nightly sets a third plate for a ghost. Yet fate, capricious dramaturge, engineers a riot: convicts swarm like iron filings toward a hijacked locomotive, its headlamp a Cyclopean eye splitting the dusk. Garry, swept aboard, rescues the warden seconds before a hurtling freight train would have painted the rails with oblivion. His act of gallantry buys a governor’s signature on parchment of mercy; the prodigal, sun-scorched and chastened, limps back to the porch swing where two women have kept the lamp trimmed and the coffee hot, proving that even a coin melted by sin may still bear the profile of redemption.
Synopsis
Garry Beecher, forgetting his mother and sweetheart, Lorna, falls in love with Veronica, a chorus girl, and heads for the city; finding her with a millionaire, he returns home and robs his former employer, then returns to Veronica and begins a career of reckless spending. When he is unable to pay for a diamond necklace, Garry is threatened with arrest and is betrayed by Veronica; he is convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. To assuage the broken heart of Garry's mother, Lorna sends her letters ostensibly written by him. In prison, Garry saves the warden from an attack by one of the prisoners, but when a wholesale break is perpetrated, Garry follows the prisoners aboard a speeding locomotive and rescues the warden just as a freight train is sighted coming in the opposite direction. As a result, the grateful warden secures a pardon for Garry, who returns home to his mother and sweetheart.
