Slipper hero Ernst Rolf is married to a real Xantippa and also has concerns with the economy, so when the superintendent is shirking his home. In town, he meets his friend Boman and accompanies him to the Opera Terrace. There, he laments that the sweet woman he once married has turned into a bitch. He fantasizes about other women (who dances in his mind in trick photography on the terrace table). Boman decides to help him by writing a letter, in which Rolf called to a meeting in Jönköping. The idea is to Rolf with this pretext to escape from home and be able to amuse themselves on Hasselbackens masquerade next evening.