A pompous, self-justifying narrator presents a mock-autobiography recounting his upbringing, family life, schooling, early ambitions, career choices, and social encounters, all delivered with earnest moralizing that highlights petty hypocrisy. Episodes touch on infancy ailments, school bullying and legal disputes, eccentric local notables, visionary notions of a Christian commercial vocation, and domestic details. Through comic detail and exaggerated self-congratulation he unwittingly exposes the gap between his proclaimed goodness and a narrow, judgmental outlook, producing sustained satire of middle-class respectability.