A conventionally respectable heir chafes under a conditional inheritance that presumes he will be corrupted by city life, so he seeks purposeful occupation beyond idle leisure. Prompted by acquaintances in a social club and a newspaper owner, he turns his attention to investigating dubious classified notices and advertising fraud, setting up a practical enterprise to expose swindlers. The narrative follows episodic investigations and encounters with eccentric schemes, blending light satire of urban ambition and the advertising world with adventures that test his ingenuity and gradually define a new, morally engaged vocation.