Mr. Webb, struck by the novelty of a little toy phone offered for sale by a street peddler, buys one for his daughter, Ruth. The child is delighted with her new plaything. Her father shows how it can be run from her bedroom to the nursery of her little friend, Gladys, who lives across the street. On the day after the phone is installed, Mr. Webb has occasion to discharge an impertinent gardener, Pedro. He leaves the house, vowing revenge. On the following day, when Mr. Webb is at the office, the Italian returns and steals into the house. Mrs. Webb is alone sewing in Ruth’s room. Pedro enters and secures her hand and foot. He attaches his revolver to the door, so that the first one to enter will set is off. He leaves by the window, closing it after him. The woman is terrified and cannot move. Suddenly she remembers the toy phone close at her side. She calls through it to her little girl, who is playing in Gladys’ nursery. Ruth finally hears and understands her mother’s cry for help. She rushes to her own home and is about to open the door, which would mean her mother’s death, when the mother’s warning cry causes her to go around to the window. She cannot reach the window and rushes out wildly for help. She finds a policeman, and he goes with her to the window. In the meantime Mr. Webb has returned home and enters the front door. He goes in search of his wife and decides that she must be in Ruth’s room. Just as he puts his hand on the door knob, the policeman enters through the window, and, realizing the situation, he pulls the chair, and Mrs. Webb out of the way as the husband enters. The shot misses her. Pedro, repenting his terrible act, rushes back to the house and arrives just in time to hear the shot fired. He comes to the conclusion at once that Mrs. Webb has been killed and falls on his knees in remorse. The door opens and Mrs. Webb enters with her husband, the policeman, and little Ruth. Mr. Webb wants to have the man arrested, but his wife, seeing that Pedro’s grief and remorse are real, prevails upon her husband to let him go free. Pedro falls on his knees beside the little girl whose plaything saved her mother from a horrible death.