Charles "Chic" Miller is a
hobo released from jail for
vagrancy, along with fellow drifter "Scrap Iron" Scratch. The two men walk to the local railroad station to hop a train out of town. Through a series of chance encounters at Union Depot, Chic becomes, in his words, a "gentleman for a day". At the depot Chic finds in a public washroom a suitcase left by a drunk passenger. In the suitcase are toiletries and a nice double-breasted man's suit with cash in one pocket. After changing into the suit, Chic uses the money to buy a much-needed meal at the depot's diner. Soon he meets Ruth Collins sitting on a bench in the terminal. She tells him she is an out-of-work chorus girl and is desperate to raise $64 for train fare to Salt Lake City, where a job is waiting for her. Initially, he thinks she is a prostitute, although he begins to believe her after she shows him a telegram with her job offer. She then confides to him that she is worried about a "madman" following her, a Dr. Bernardi, who resides in the same
boarding house she recently left. She adds that the strange doctor has "bad eyes" and once paid her to read to him in the evenings. Now feeling sorry for Ruth, Chic tells her he will give her the money she needs "with no strings attached". Back inside the depot, a crook named "Bushy" Sloan is impersonating a German musician and is carrying a violin case full of counterfeit money. Bushy checks the case into the station's temporary storage for baggage, but a
pickpocket soon steals his wallet, which contains the baggage-claim ticket. The pickpocket discards the wallet in an alleyway after removing its cash. While waiting for Chic outside the depot, Scrap Iron finds the wallet with the ticket. Later he gives the ticket to Chic, who reclaims the violin case. Initially, Chic plans to
pawn the case until he opens it and is stunned to see it is full of money, not realizing it is counterfeit. He hides the case and most of the bogus cash in a small
coal bin near the depot, and he instructs Scrap Iron to guard it while he leaves to ponder what to do. Chic sees Ruth again and gives her some of the counterfeit cash to buy new clothes at a shop in the station. She too is unaware that the money is not genuine. While Chic is away, Dr. Bernardi sends Ruth a passenger ticket and a message to meet him in the train's designated compartment. Believing the ticket is from Chic, Ruth goes there and begins screaming when she sees Bernardi. Chic has returned to the dress shop to discover from the saleslady about the ticket Ruth was sent. He rushes to the train, but the counterfeiter tries to stop him. He boards the rail car, hears Ruth screaming and breaks through the train car's locked door, but Bernardi escapes. As he runs across an adjacent railroad track, he is struck by a passing train and killed. Meanwhile, the dress shop clerk who sold clothes to Ruth becomes suspicious of the cash she used and takes it to the station master. Both Ruth and Chic are then taken into custody by government agents searching for criminals exchanging phony money. Unfortunately, the investigators have no description of Bushy, but they believe Ruth might be his associate. To clear her, Chic goes with one of the agents to retrieve the hidden violin case. The men are followed by Bushy, who shoots the agent and flees with the case. Chic chases and catches the crook. All is reconciled and Ruth has a bittersweet parting from Chic as she boards the train to Utah. The film ends with Chic and Scrap Iron walking together along a railroad track, away from Union Depot and back to their lives as hobos. ==Cast==