[1] The story takes place during a warm season in 1931 at the Baxter Coffee Warehouse in New York City.
Just as he is being fired by J. Bloodgood Baxter because he had brought a phonograph to work, a letter arrives informing him that he has won the prize.
Tulip convinces Mr. Ephraim Baxter, the company founder, to exercise his power, and gets Jimmy the contract he was promised.
Mr. Rasmussen enters again and declares that it was Jimmy who had won the Maxford House slogan contest.
Writing in The New York Times, theater critic Mel Gussow called the play superior to the film adaptation, Gussow said that the play had an "embracing innocence" compared to the movie, and said: "By the time the story reached the screen, it was coated with cynicism, as the author added opportunistic characters and tried to turn an office comedy into a broader social commentary.