A once popular actor, Nat Barry (played by Henry B. Walthall), is a has-been because of his alcoholism. The legendary film star is forced by necessity to take a job selling patent medicine at a traveling sideshow dressed in a costume as Abraham Lincoln. Having trouble staying sober, he is arrested and taken before a "police court" for drunken disorder. His teenage son, Junior Barry (played by Leon Janney), pleads on Barry's behalf and Judge Robert Webster (played by Edmund Breese) grants him a reprieve.