In which we take our first curious steps into the Pocket household, a place of genteel pretensions and private disorder, peopled by a family whose affections and ambitions are as tangled as their domestic arrangements. Amid nervous efforts at propriety and involuntary comedy, the evening unfolds with a lively mix of social toadying, youthful antics, and the quiet despair of a man attempting to steady himself against the baffling tides of his fortunes.