The next day, Speedy knows he must find a job, and he responds to an ad at The Only One Cab Company, for a cab driver who is steady and reliable. Speedy and taxi leave the garage, but a door handle accidentally catches an "Out of Order" sign. Through the day, Speedy cannot figure out why he has no takers! That is cleared tip and, after a few wild fares, including a chase with two detectives, Speedy gets the thrill of his life: he is called to drive Babe Ruth to the Yankee Stadium. It's a wild ride for the Bambino, who finally does get to the "house he built" on time.

Speedy goes in to see the game, but meets up with his taxi boss―he is promptly fired. Speedy, however, overhears a plot to steal Pop's trolley, keeping it from running for one day (spearheaded by Wilton and the monopoly).  Speedy gathers help from the neighborhood old-timers (who use the trolley as a late-night clubhouse), and they formulate a counterattack. In case of any trouble, they agree to use the same catch phrase they used in the Civil War: "It smells like rain!"  The old-timers, with the enthusiasm they probably showed during the War, prepare rolling pins, horseshoes, baseball bats, and clipping shears as weapons of mass destruction.  The old-timers take on the monopoly's young hooligans―in the midst of the melee, however, the trolley has been stolen.

Speedy employs his dog to sniff out the location of the horse and trolley, and embarks on one of his most harrowing races ever.  Speedy knows he must reach the end of the line by ten o'clock, or Pop loses his franchise. He rescues the horse and trolley from the gang's Kent Avenue hideout, but the horse develops hoof trouble, so Speedy finds another off the street. Speedy has a police escort for his ride: a police mannequin, that is, that had fallen off a truck display. Speedy attached the dummy to the front of the trolley, upright, so that it looked as if a cop were standing next to Speedy.  And, whenever anyone looked, Speedy rigged the mannequin's arm so that when he pulled a rope, the cop's hollow arm would rise in salutation.

Speedy is the embodiment of determination: when he has a collision with a beam of the elevated subway, and loses a wheel, he replaces it with a manhole cover.  The gangsters have one last trick up their sleeves, and have dug a deep hole across Pop's street, hoping to shear the trolley into pieces.  Speedy loses the bottom part of the trolley in the ditch, but he continues on to the end of the line, saving the day and making the deadline with two minutes to spare.