Three inept firemen try to avoid being fired by their increasingly exasperated chief.

An ambitious shoe salesman, Harold, unknowingly meets the boss' daughter and tells her he is a leather tycoon. The rest of the film he spends hiding his true circumstances, in the store and later on a ship. Trying to deliver a letter, he later finds himself dangling high above the street on a building's scaffolding.

After a mix-up with his application photograph, an aspiring actor is invited to a screen test and goes off to Hollywood.