Travers Averill comes to the Rockefeller rink every evening to make a fool of himself. His crisp business attire adds to the hilarity of every dramatic flop, which generates a belly laugh from his crowd of onlookers. He’s practiced this routine for three years now, ever since he came to the rink with his wife and children. His wife refused to struggle on the ice in public, and his sons diligently refused to laugh at their father’s failures. Travers had always conned and stunted for laughs as a child, and he couldn’t be more disconnected for the straitlaced hardness of his accomplished family. His act contented a desperate thirst for laughs, and he imagined the indignity he brought upon his family with every fall. Absorbed in this pursuit, Travers loses his job, and his wife announces a divorce. His family forces an intervention, and they notice his blue complexion, but he backflips away from them back onto the ice. Slowly, however, his routine becomes sloppy and uncoordinated, and the guards carry him off one day in the throes of a heart attack.