A provincial town's social club confronts the arrival of an outsider, prompting a campaign to deny him membership on religious grounds. Episodes set in a hotel reveal how servants and aspirant clerks overhear and comment on the club's secret proceedings, while local officials and notables stage petty power plays, fines, and rituals to enforce social hierarchy. The narrative uses satirical vignettes to expose hypocrisy, exclusionary customs, and the trivial anxieties that underpin small-town authority.