- Billy escapes from an asylum, and through a flirtation with a manicurist is led to a barbershop, where he is induced to take her place, as she has an engagement she is anxious to keep. place. He takes the manicurist to the Barber's ball, where the asylum keepers trace him. He evades them and runs back to the asylum. Arriving there he heaves a sigh of contentment and locks the asylum guards out for the night.—Motion Picture News, January 26, 1918
- After an exciting chase, Billy escapes from his keepers and wanders out into the park. There he meets Joy, a manicurist, and makes such a hit with her that she takes him home to introduce him to father. Mr. Budd, her father, runs the barber shop, but he is an inveterate "chicken-chaser." A fair damsel passes and Budd, pressing Billy into service, starts out after her, leaving Billy in charge of the shop. Billy makes a fine barber. A bum comes in for a shave and Billy removes his whiskers with a vacuum cleaner. As he refuses to pay for the "shave," Billy reverses the cleaner and squirts the whiskers back onto his face. A cowboy, with a pair of bearskin chaps, is next. He orders a haircut and while he snoozes, Billy clips all the hair off his chaps. He gives the next customer a rough shave with sandpaper and a massage with a rolling-pin, and makes a mess of the day's business in general. Oliver is Joy's sweetheart. He invites her to the barbers' ball that evening and takes the chair to get "fixed up" for the ball. Billy "fixes him" by trimming his moustache to look like his own. Several other customers with moustaches come in and Billy trims them all to look like his own. At seven o'clock Billy turns the clock an hour ahead and, convincing Joy that Oliver has disappointed her, he takes her to the ball himself. At the ball are Budd and Gladys, the chicken he has been chasing. Oliver comes in later with Joy's mother, who has been waiting in vain for Budd and altogether some interesting situations develop. The warden, meanwhile, has put two new keepers on Billy's trail. He gives them a photo of the lower part of Billy's face showing mostly his moustache and they start out to finish him by means of this. Later in the evening they wander into the ball but seeing half a dozen men there with the same style of moustache they are completely baffled. When they finally land Billy, he breaks away from them and after a wild chase runs home to his asylum and, locking the keepers outside, returns to his old quarters.
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