Dan McFadden builds an apartment house in a working-class neighborhood on New York's East Side called "McFadden's Flats." At the same time, Dan and his wife Nora send their tomboyish daughter Molly to an expensive girls' school to teach her etiquette. Molly only agrees to go after her sweetheart, Sandy MacTavish, convinces her she should. When Dan is unable to complete the apartments because of a lack of money, Sandy's father Jock, a Scottish barber and Dan's best friend, secretly backs Dan's loan at the bank, even though Jock is known for his penny-pinching ways.