Neighborhood beat cop Frank Powell and Kate Bruce have just given their son, Owen Moore, a new cap. Because of that, when he finds the cap at the site of a safecracking, he realizes who the thief is. Will he do his duty?
It's a split-reel drama from D.W. Griffith, based on a short story by O. Henry. In fact, it is the third; the first had been THE SACRIFICE, based on "The Gift of the Magi"; the second TRYING TO GET ARRESTED. Clearly his bosses, finished with fighting the Patents Trust (since they were now part of it), could and did spend money on their productions. 1909 had opened with them paying big for new costumes, and now they were the first to buy stories from the hottest short-story writer around.
Contemporary reviews raved about the facial expressions of the players, part of Griffith's new pantomime. Interestingly, it's all shot at medium length, using the Biograph Right Wall to give the frame a proscenium-arch-like composition. It also added depth to the frame, permitting the actor, whose reactions tell the title-free story at the moment, to "hold the stage" by moving slightly forward. Clearly close-ups were not yet part of Griffith's standard vocabulary.