Shot at an unidentified location in New York City, the film shows several pieces of horse-drawn fire vehicles in motion: two hook-and-ladders; two steam pumpers; a rescue wagon.
An organ-grinder is playing beneath the window of a cranky old woman. She objects strenuously. The organ-grinder, egged on by Hooligan, keeps on playing until a policeman appears.
It seems as if there was no subject so mundane or seedy that it was considered unworthy of filming by Edison and his contemporaries at the turn of the century.
The German legend of a scholar's unholy pact with the Devil would have been very familiar to most moviegoers (at least European ones), so Georges Méliès' early cinematic treatment likely got away with simply offering a fancifully illustrated late episode without the earlier narrative context (however, spoken narration provides some of the latter in this restored print).