A newly married man finds it impossible to get along with his wife's mother, who lives with the couple, and plans to get rid of her. He receives an advertisement from a hypnotic school, which informs him he can learn to hypnotize by mail. He has an idea that he can hypnotize his mother-in-law, thereby making her leave his home. He receives the lessons and proceeds to learn the art. He practices continually wherever he goes. In the street car he scares passengers with funny antics; runs into a man carrying a sack of flour; makes his mother-in-law pack her belongings and leave his home. The amateur hypnotist meets his Waterloo when the indignant old lady finds him later.