Eleven small stories, loving chronicles about Rio de Janeiro and its people, written by some of the best Brazilian writers of the time.

Colonel Polidoro is the political chief of the small town of Passaroca. Near the city hall elections, he decides to help his candidate by setting up an adult literacy course. For this, he needs to find a competent teacher and decides to go to Rio de Janeiro with this function. False moralist that is, ends up falling in the revelry, meets a beautiful dancer and invites the girl to spend the carnival on his farm. Drunk, he confuses the addresses and causes his driver to take the dancer in place of the teacher to Passaroca, which will cause a lot of confusion.

The sophisticated thief Mão Leve and his simple-minded accomplice Jonjoca take from the rich to give to the poor. Their new mission is raising funds in order Mão Leve's brother can study abroad. But great care must be taken lest the honest boy discovers the origin of the money.

A small-time con man is run down by a drunken young millionaire . The former blackmails the other into being taken in the family mansion.

When a woman discovers her husband's infidelity, she decides to get divorced. But he still loves her, and learning that another guy has fallen for her, decides to change places with him. He would be the lover.

A small town is taken upside down when an inventor finds a way to turn bones into gold.

A ruthless loan shark doesn't realize the evil that he has done to his own family: his son is waist-deep in resentment, and his daughter- married to an unsuccessful lawyer - ends up prostituting herself.

The story takes place in a boarding house, on the verge of bankruptcy, where the most different characters parade: a solitary woman, a womanizer singer, a musical group, an unemployed doctor, a football player and a radio singer, and where everyone gets involved to pay the mortgage that threatened the pension.

Passengers aboard a seemingly doomed plane reminisce about their lives, questioning the façade of their daily social activities. Once safe at Santos Dumont Airport, they go back to their old hypocritical selves.

Professor Leônidas Jau is an enemy of football, and in conferences and articles he throws all his hatred against the sport. Friendenreich, his son, however, loves the sport. Leonidas then has a falling out with his son, which may be saved.

A theater manager about to go bankrupt decides to accept help from his daughter and her boyfriend to save the family's finances, which she does with the sponsorship of a rich man.

Two authors go look for a business to finance their dream musical.

Two young men from Paris bring "wonderful civilizing ideas" into the brain. But, as they returned without pity, they began to call for an auction of the furniture and objects of art that garrison their "garconiére", last vestige of the passage of opulence. The great idea would be to install a cabaret in the favela for tourists in search of new sensations and also for the inhabitants of the city. On the hill, one of the boys experiences the greatest surprise: he found there, living among the humble, teaching to read to the children, Rosinha, an enchanted little princess, queen of the hill.