Mike Rosenberg, a ne'er-do-well, is broke, but still is undenied the pleasure of imagination. A circus comes to town, and he is without the price of admission. He retires disgusted to the solitude of the bar, where he dreams that he possesses unlimited wealth. His first investment is a pet elephant that leads him into a vast variety of expensive difficulties. Wearying of the pet elephant, he swaps it for a bucking broncho; this in turn proceeds to make it lively for poor Mike, and finally bucks him out of dreamland back into the cold and unemotional world of today.