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.