Tailor Vipperup in Ebberöd has problems with liquidity: customers are bad at paying for his services while his own creditors are all the more intrusive. His consolation in life consists of his daughter Ellen and the faithful companion Tadeus. However, the repulsive trader Klemmensen, the town's richest man and most ruthless usurer, casts more and more lustful glances at Ellen.

Katja is about to graduate, but she has nothing to wear for the graduation ball. Her father, the eccentric inventor Carl Axel Kock does not spend much of his income on Katja while her brother Curry gets everything he wants. So on the day of the ball, Katja simply dresses up in her brother’s brand new evening attire and attends the dance, smokes cigars, drinks brandy–and causes a scandal.