The film depicts a risqué comic encounter between a clerk and his female customer while she is trying on shoes.

The structure of the short builds on the example of two other films: Biograph's No Liberties, Please (1902), which similarly featured a young man being punished for his fresh behavior in a public place, and George Albert Smith's As Seen Through a Telescope (1900), which used an insert shot to represent what one of the characters can see.

[2] While the insert shot draws the audience's attention to the customer's shapely ankle, it does not represent what the shoe clerk sees.

[3] Film historian Charles Musser observes that the film validates the male gaze: "True, the young man not only sees but touches and even kisses the young lady, but his transgression is promptly greeted by a bash on the head from the chaperone.

"[2] Critic Tom Pollard says, "The film's seemingly innocuous format prevented local censors from doing much damage, yet it evoked sexuality... [This and similar films] evoke Victorian-era taboos while revealing the limits of permissible filmmaking at the time.