The Counter Jumper

A sun-blistered crossroads store, half cathedral of commerce, half shack of shams, becomes the arena where Larry—rubber-limbed, ink-smudged, hat perpetually collapsing like a soufflé—attempts the grave vocation of tallying beans and wrapping calico. Into this fly-blown Eden glides an heiress whose silk seems spun from threatened inheritances; behind her slithers a villain whose moustache wax catches the light like a drawn stiletto. Larry’s abacus becomes a Gatling gun of clumsy arithmetic, each keystroke ricocheting into chaos: molasses cascades, barrels somersault, a mule kicks the kerosene, and the store’s bell clangs like a cow in a hailstorm. The heiress’s innocence is auctioned off between floorboard cracks while Larry, airborne on a ladder, pirouettes through space, scattering ledgers like albino moths. In the final reel, justice somersaults through the window: villain hog-tied with his own spats, heiress restored to her fortune, Larry promoted to—what else?—head of the complaint department.