But then fate closes in even more relentlessly; While Stan and Ollie are en route home from Chicago, their supposed ship arriving from Honolulu sinks in a typhoon and the wives head to the shipping company's offices to find out any news about the survivors. At the same time, Stan and Ollie, blissfully unaware of the shipwreck as yet, return home as though from Honolulu and are confused by the empty houses. While Stan reads the paper, Ollie suddenly catches sight the headline of their supposed ship's demise and immediately grasps its grisly implications. Panic-stricken, knowing their wives will know right away they never went to Honolulu, they prepare to go to a hotel to spend the night, only to catch sight of their wives returning home. They end up taking refuge hastily in the attic and, as they can't escape, decide to camp out there. Meanwhile, the wives go to the cinema to calm their rattled nerves, where they see a newsreel of the convention featuring their husbands acting extremely hammy. Furious at being deceived, they blame one another's wayward spouses, while Betty, knowing Stan lied for the first time ever to her, is still confident he will atone and confess, more than Oliver will do. That outrages Lottie to the point of proposing a challenge to see whose husband is the truthful one. As for the husbands, their camping in the attic starts out smoothly enough but is interrupted loudly enough as to attract the attention of the wives (prompting Betty, who suspects burglars, to investigate with her shotgun) and they manage to flee out of sight, escaping to the rooftop. When they cannot get back in, Oliver sees this as their opportunity to follow their original plan of going to a hotel to pass the night. Stan, however, wants to go back home and confess to his wife but Oliver threatens, "If you go downstairs and spill the beans, "I'll" tell Betty that I caught you smoking a cigarette!" They are about to make their way to a hotel to spend the night, but are stopped by a policeman who manages to get their home addresses from them thanks to Stan. The wives notice them coming, but while Lottie wants to shoot them the moment they walk through the door, Betty reminds her of their argument that needs to be settled. Upon walking into the house, they tell the wives about the shipwreck. Then, when asked about how the pair of them had managed to get home a day before the rescue ship carrying the survivors was due, their story begins to unravel; they say they jumped ship and "ship-hiked" their way home.