Lou Bookman is a kindly sidewalk pitchman who sells and repairs toys, notions (sewing), and trinkets, and is adored by the neighborhood children. One day, Bookman is visited by Mr. Death, who tells him that he is to die at midnight of death by natural causes. Unable to dissuade Death, Bookman instead convinces him to wait until Bookman has made his greatest sales pitch: "one for the angels". Death agrees, and Bookman immediately announces he is retiring, smug that he has successfully cheated Death. Death concedes Bookman has found a loophole in their agreement, but warns Bookman that someone else now has to die in his place. Death chooses Maggie, a little girl who lives in Bookman's apartment building and is a friend of his.