Max occupies a stage-side box during the performance of a juggler and is smitten with a desire to try the tricks himself. He succeeds only in upsetting the performer’s balance, and getting forcibly ejected from the theatre. Outside, Max staggers against a passerby and nearly gets into a brawl, then snatches a hat from the head of another, and tries to balance it on his nose, to the detriment of the hat, which falls into the mud. Max hires a cab, but his attempt to juggle with the carriage lamp ends in the driver getting a blow on the head and throwing his unwelcome fare out. Next, Max goes into the post office for some small change, and enters a telephone booth to make a call. His attention is distracted by the receiver, which seems a good prop for a juggler. A queue of impatient would-be users outside the booth at last burst in, and drag out Max, and set about him with sticks and bags. The next object of Max’s attention is a pile of hat boxes, set down on the pavement by their gossiping owners. Max scatters them about the ground and is soundly belaboured by the crowd of women. On a park bench, a woman is teaching her dog to beg. Max sits by them, and when the woman is not looking snatches up the little dog in order to make it balance on his chest. Unfortunately, the dog is leashed to the seat and Max, dog and woman are precipitated backwards by the jerk of the lead. The woman beats Max with her unbrella. Exhausted, Max seats himself at a café table and orders a drink, but cannot resist the temptation of another juggling feat, and spills glass and contents over his neighbours. A further effort with the soda siphon drenches another customer, but nothing daunted, Max picks up a table and chairs for a balancing act. The furious proprietor drives him off. Max sees a waiter coming out to clean the windows, for which purpose he mounts a ladder and the would-be juggler remembers a trick of the professional he saw earlier. He grabs the foot of the ladder, only to shoot waiter and ladder through the plate glass onto the crowd of diners inside. Max decides to return home for a little peaceful practice and walks casually over the body of a lady with whom he collides on the staircase. She fetches a crowd of onlookers, all of whom press their eyes to cracks in the door. They see Max prepare a pyramid of vases and jars, and other breakable objects, which he is about to balance when the door bursts open under the pressure of the watchers and all are brought tumbling down. The juggler manqué sets about his persecutors with the bedclothes.