Waldo and the baby went on an outing to the beach with the nurse, but it mattered little to Waldo, who consumed much learning from his book, wherever he went or wandered. Nurse went off with the auto driver and left the studious one in charge of the baby. That gave Bob and Tilly a chance to make their innings. Bob was a pirate chief and his crew was Tilly and two black slaves, Rastus and Dave, thrown in. Waldo would not think of playing pirates, but he became part of the game all right. They bound him in their pirate cave and sailed away for the sea with the baby. But the pirate brig was a leaky motor boat that ran away out to sea. Bold pirates became frightened ones when the runaway boat also began to leak, but when the nurse returned and found what her neglect had led to, assistance was soon sent to the pirates.

The famous child detective Dick, with the collaboration of his stenographer, succeeds in uncovering a desperate character. But the little stenographer falls victim to the wiles of the villain's evil accomplices, and is locked by them under vile duress in a barrel of ashes, where she falls asleep.