One day, Jig, a manager at a railroad electrifying company, is approached by one of his workers, Scarfe. Scarfe requests Jig to hire one of his friends, Regan. He tells Jig Regan has experience working in transmission and that he wants employment closer to the city to satisfy his wife’s wishes. Jig, disgusted and incredulous at the reason, declines Scarfe’s request. However, later Scarfe confesses to Jig that Regan is being financially abused by his wife and has developed a gambling addiction. He dearly loves his wife but has fallen onto hard times. The two men discuss all the ways they’d like to punish her, and Jig finally agrees to hire Regan after Scarfe tells him Regan saved his life in the same way Scarfe once carried Jig out of a massive sprawl of burning wire.

When Regan is hired, he is eager to learn and hardworking. Jig often finds him not joking around with the other men during breaks but rather reading over blueprints. He and Scarfe work well together, with Scarfe answering any questions Regan has about the wire train. Things take a turn for the worse when Regan receives his first paycheck. Though the check is substantial, Regan soon loses a large amount of it when he and his coworkers gamble with it. The next day, he arrives at work with a black eye and no dinner, and Jig realizes that Regan’s wife isn’t only financially abusing him but also physically abusing him. After Regan fights with one of his coworkers when he calls his wife a whore, Jig sends him to work. He quickly observes a sharp decline in Regan’s work quality, correcting his many careless errors on tasks he has learned to do well in the past.

The next day, Regan almost kills his crew by accidentally raising a handlebar to touch the hot power lines running above them. Luckily, Scarfe tackles him down just in time. Jig wants to fire Regan, but Scarfe begs for Jig to give him another chance. Jig reluctantly assents on the grounds that Scarfe will talk some sense into him. That week, Regan keeps his mind on his work, doesn’t gamble, and takes home his paycheck in full. The next week, the crew has an amusing incident. Upon thinking a homeless person has stumbled upon the high-voltage signal bridge, the crew races to save the man’s life. When the breaker blows and they search for his body, they only find the remains of a cat. They fill out a form for the cat’s death as they would for a person. Although the crew is laughing at their initial distress, Scarfe grows serious when one man says the cat now has nothing to trouble him. On the form, they write “none” under the Remarks section.

After the next payday, Regan returns to work with a long scratch on his face and begins making mistakes again. Jig tells Scarfe he’ll have to fire Regan, and Scarfe agrees. Later, Scarfe asks Jig if he and Regan can work on the signal bridge. Jig tells him he doesn’t have the power clearance or time to do it, but when Scarfe pushes the request to allow him and Regan to work together one last time, Jig obliges. Soon after they begin working, Jig hears the breaker switch blow. He rushes to the scene, bracing himself to find the results of another one of Regan’s mistakes. Surprisingly, only Regan has died. Scarfe cries, starting a confession, but Jig slaps him and says mistakes like this happen often. He tells him they’ll write “none” for Regan’s remarks, and Scarfe thanks him.