Maurice Pinder is outwardly an ordinary South Londoner. His first wife was unable to have children, so he acquired another to bear him a son. Amazingly, as the play progresses, we see him acquire three more, the marriages taking place at home to avoid charges of bigamy. Yet they all seem to co-exist happily together, each wife having her own night with Maurice, and everything appears to be going welläó_ until Fay brin's home a one-night stand.