Charles Pooter and his wife Caroline have just moved to a new home. Mr Pooter is a City of London clerk with Perkupps. The couple have a 20-year-old son, Lupin, who works as a bank clerk in Oldham. From the beginning a pattern is set whereby the small vexations of the Pooters' daily lives are recounted, many of them arising from Pooter's unconscious self-importance and pomposity. Trouble with servants, tradesmen and office juniors, together with minor social embarrassments and humiliations, occur regularly.