Jerry is living in a theatrical boarding house, where everybody, including himself, is in debt to the landlady. The landlady is going right after her collections in regulation "strong arm" style, and the boarders are resorting to every device known to escape from her clutches with their belongings. Jerry is not slow in his methods of making a getaway, but has hard luck in carrying them out. He finally gets into a mix-up with the landlady, the janitor and a policeman, but after a whirlwind scramble upstairs and downstairs, through second story windows and back doors, up and down ladders and ropes made of bedsheets, he succeeds in distancing his pursuers and escapes up an alley with his trunk.