The ambitious dancer Darius sabotages the stage and sees to it that two rival colleagues are crippled. Now Darius is the leading man, but goes insane with hallucinations caused by his guilt.
Two men, the American Emmet Carlton and the French Franz Dubois, claim to be the bravest man alive. They meet in Paris for a decisive battle. Each opponent starts pulling pranks to scare the other out of his wits – and thus be announced the winner. In the end they engage in a pistol duel and perish both.
Sam Larkin poisons professor Hartford and hooks the scientist’s brain to a mechanical thinking machine to calculate gambling odds. Larkin wins at roulette and boxing bets. When he takes every last penny to the horse races, he is taught a lesson: Hartford is still alive and rigged all his winnings to ruin his criminal assistant.