Tim Clancy was a politician. He was a contractor incidentally. He wanted and secured, by breaking down a good man's moral code, the contract to build the new city water system. Specifications called for the best. He put in the cheapest. The impairing of the city's health was the result. But Tim Clancy pays for this piece of crookedness, pays dearly. Also the poor victim suffered. And it is all worked into a story of heart interest, action and a forceful climax. To the end of securing the contract for the city's new filtering plant and water works, Tim Clancy instructs his confederate, Warren, to offer a bribe to George Austen, an upright young office holder who handles the bids. Austen, who is married and has a child, throws Warren out at the mere suggestion of a bribe. Clancy searches around for other means to reach Austen. He learns that Austen's wife is a "climber," ambitious and longs for an automobile. Through him a local automobile company visits Mrs. Austen and interests her in one of their machines. In time she prevails upon her husband to buy the car. In order to meet the payment Austen accepts the bribe and awards the contract to Clancy. Time passes. Through the cheap work and grafting done in the erection of the filtering plant, an epidemic of typhoid fever seizes the city. Orders are issued to drink only bottled waters. The poor suffer as a result of this. Austen is panic-stricken and his cup of bitterness is added to when his child drinks the city water and is stricken. Meanwhile Clancy's automobile has run down a child and his daughter, who has fainted, drinks some of the polluted water. Austen's child recovers, but is left blind to the vain mother and weak-willed father as their punishment. Clancy's daughter dies and the grafter realizes, only too late, that his dishonest methods have brought the hand of punishment heavily upon his head.