Fred Ardath does his drunken vaudeville act in 'These Dry Days'.

The Trombone family is very musically inclined, but their neighbours, the painter Pierre van Hall and his wife, are being driven crazy. This turns into a fight between the neighbours that gets way out of hand, because their reactions to each other become increasingly extreme; at one point a brass band is even used. The police ultimately force the quarrelling neighbours to make peace, by threatening them with jail.

An anxious old man who is searching for a rare edition of the Talmud finally tracks the tome down at a research library in Boston. But before he can get his hands on it, a hideous apparition intervenes.