Billy Crocker, a young love-sick Wall Street broker, stows away on the S.S. American, in hopes of winning the heart of his beloved Hope Harcourt. His boss, Yale graduate Elisha J. Whitney, is also on board. He plans to relax before the tremendous sale of his own company's stock . Hope is on her way to England to be married to Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, a stuffy, hapless British nobleman. Also on the boat are Moonface Martin, a second-rate gangster on the lam labeled Public Enemy 13, and his friend Bonnie; the two have disguised themselves as a minister and a missionary, respectively, after stranding the ship's real chaplain back at the port. They also, mistakenly, left behind their leader, Snake Eyes Johnson, Public Enemy 1.