Monsieur Feydeau has writer's block and he needs a new play, so he takes an opportunity to observe his upper class neighbors of 1900 Paris. There is Monsieur Boniface with hard domineering wife Angelique; also, Monsieur Cotte with beautiful but neglected wife Marcelle. Henri Cotte traces architectural anomalies (mostly "ghost" sounds in the drain pipes) and plans a night at the Hotel Paradiso, which happens to be the chosen romantic rendezvous spot of Marcelle and Monsieur Boniface. One wife, two husbands, a nephew, and the perky Boniface maid, all at this 'by the hour' hotel and consummation of the affair is, to say the least, severely compromised (not the least by a police raid). All of this is under Feydeau's eye, and his play is the 'success fou' of the next season.