Alexis Caesar Napoleon Brown entertains delusions of grandeur although he is only a lowly clerk in a New York button factory. Completely discouraged, he takes up a philosophy that claims that one may attain any object in life by concentrating one's mind on it, but he loses his job while trying to practice the philosophy on his boss. Encouraged by the fact that his late mother came from the kingdom of Vulgaria, Alexis concentrates on the subject of becoming a royal personage and falls asleep. Soon after, the minister of Vulgaria appears and states that the king is dead and Alexis must take the throne. Alexis accepts and travels to Vulgaria where he is kept busy dodging attempts made on his life by Black Boris, a pretender to the throne. While dueling for his life after insulting the homely Princess Valentina, his betrothed, Alexis falls over a cliff and awakens to discover that he has merely tumbled out of bed. Thus disabused of his fantasies, Alexis eagerly returns to his life in the button factory, proposes to Elsie Merrill, his down-to-earth sweetheart, and eventually finds happiness as a family man in a New Jersey suburb.