When We Were Twenty-One (1915)

Richard Audaine, known for his mad pranks as "The Imp," is at once the idol and the torment of his loving guardian's heart. In the prologue of the action, which occurs some twenty years before the action of the play, Dick Carew, a steady-going barrister, receives a letter from a dying friend containing a request that he and "The Trinity," as three of their mutual friends were termed, adopt the little orphan son of the writer, baby Richard Audaine. These four men, though not very wealthy, vow together to carry out the terms of the letter, with Dick Carew as guardian. The baby arrives, and though the four bachelors have quite a time in learning the wants of the infant, and their struggles in caring for it are humorously pathetic, the child thrives and soon twines itself about the heartstrings of Dick Carew. who loves it as his own son, while "The Trinity" forget their dignity to romp on all-fours with the spoiled baby. Young Richard grows into a fine, handsome, athletic boy, adored by his guardians, and is sent to college, where he wins the highest honors as a "good sport" and a football hero, making the winning touchdown for his college team. He then meets a fascinating dancer, known as "The Firefly," who, hearing the rumor that "The Imp" will come into a vast fortune when he is twenty-one, proceeds to fascinate him, and he, thinking her a good and misjudged woman, falls into the trap she had made for him and marries her. How his eyes are opened at the worthlessness of the woman, how she eventually throws him aside when she learns that he has no fortune (his expenses being paid out of the meager pockets of his guardians), how he is regenerated and strengthened by his intense suffering, and how he finds a finer, nobler love when he is finally freed from "The Firefly" are all grippingly developed in this tense dramatic photoplay.