Dickey Tonking, a favorite student of troubled professor Barry Richter, is called upon to deliver a paper to an assembly of peers during Richter's illness. In doing so, he radically distorts the original text and almost unconsciously includes ideas of his own. But when the professor dies in a fire that looks suspiciously like a suicide, his protege is left to face the academic consequences. Worse yet, when Dickey unwittingly becomes involved in an attempted murder of a girl by a jealous lover, he shoots the villain during a scuffle. As the girl, Cissy, flees the scene, both she and Dickey...

Dickey Tonking, a favorite student of troubled professor Barry Richter, is called upon to deliver a paper to an assembly of peers during Richter's illness. In doing so, he radically distorts the original text and almost unconsciously includes ideas of his own. But when the professor dies in a fire that looks suspiciously like a suicide, his protege is left to face the academic consequences. Worse yet, when Dickey unwittingly becomes involved in an attempted murder of a girl by a jealous lover, he shoots the villain during a scuffle. As the girl, Cissy, flees the scene, both she and Dickey...