Hapless taxidermist Elmer J. Butts (Buster Keaton) takes one look at a gangster's beautiful moll (Phyllis Barry) and falls in love. With the insistence of his friend Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante), Elmer agrees to sink $10,000 of his savings into a beer factory in anticipation of the repeal of Prohibition. Elmer naively believes that the profits from their fledgling beer empire will earn him enough money to woo the girl of his dreams. But things don't work out exactly as they planned, and the two pals wind up running into much more trouble than they bargained for.