A Hollywood hack who has fallen on hard times since the end of the Silent Era, Pat Hobby spends his time hanging out in the studio lot attempting to devise schemes to get more work and earn on-screen credits. Entertainingly artless and insensitive; by turns lazy and scheming, Hobby keeps his head just above water as the decades leave silent film behind. F. Scott Fitzgeralds collection of 17 humorous short stories paints a comic portrait of a man unwilling to accept his fate as a thing of the past.