A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed.
Guests at a luxury hotel are horrified when they witness a man literally "disappear into thin air." The vanished man's relatives hire a detective, who goes to the hotel to investigate the disappearance.
A group of drinking, smoking and card-playing society women are getting obesely flabby. They go to a gym where various methods are used to reduce their fat.
Stephan Gregorovitch, the unwilling king of a bankrupt Ruritanian country, along with his hucksterish chancellor and musically-inclined bodyguard, travel incognito to London for some fun.