Out of costume, Charlie is a clean-shaven dandy who, somewhat drunk, visits a dance hall. There the wardrobe girl has three rival admirers: the band leader, one of the musicians, and now Charlie.

Two drunks fight with their wives and then go out and get even drunker.

Charlie is an actor in a film studio. He messes up several scenes and is tossed out. Returning dressed as a lady, he charms the director. Even so, Charlie never makes it into film, winding up at the bottom of a well.

A very plastered fella follows a pretty woman home, and proceeds to make a nuisance of himself.

A couple of tramps, down on their luck and hungry, decide to fake an exhibition boxing match for a promoter. Meanwhile, Pug, a good-hearted but boisterous fellow, takes on a gang of mashers who make unwanted advances to his girlfriend. Impressed by his abilities, the mashers decide to pass Pug off as Cyclone Flynn, the champion, and enter him in the boxing match. But the real Cyclone shows up, and he and Pug battle it out in the ring. Soon the fight progresses to include pistols, rooftop chases, and the Keystone Kops in hot pursuit.

In a drugdstore Al and Roscoe are rivals for Alice. Roscoe slings melons and operates the gas pump. Buster delivers a wedding gown for Alice, begins modeling it, is mistaken for Alice and is kidnapped by Al.

Roscoe, his wife and his mother-in-law run a seaside resort. Buster plays a gardener who puts out a fire started by Roscoe, then a delivery boy who fights with the cook St. John, then a cop. The Rough House (1917) is a short comedy film written and directed by and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. The Rough House was Keaton's first film as a director.

Customers and clerks frolic in a general store. Roscoe walks out of the freezer wearing a fur coat, then does some clever cleaver tossing. In Buster's film debut he buys a pail of molasses.