Thanks to wartime smuggling Gioconda Perfetti, a roman fruit vendor, becomes very rich. She leaves her shop and moves to a magnificent villa which once belonged to a count. She also becomes involved with some very dubious characters who profit from her ignorance and cheat her out of her money.

The ordinary life of the prudent employee Mr. Travet accelerates as he and her wife meet his new chief.

Cretinetti is about to get married and he could not be any happier and more in love with his Junoesque consort. But just on the day of his wedding, he reads a notice on the wall explaining how to behave in the case of an enemy air raid. The fear that grips him makes him even too literal in implementing safety indications, causing trouble and accidents that will not only stop him from enjoying his first marital night, but will even cause the collapse of the whole house. In the end, the gendarmes go to him with a conscription notice and take him away under coercion, under the appalled gaze of his new bride.

A bourgeois gentleman gets excited reading about cops and robbers on the newspaper. His wife, bored by his comments, falls asleep and right after, with the help of the warmth of the living room, he falls asleep too. Then, the shadow of an escaping robber comes to life from the newspaper. Suddenly the dreamer wakes up wearing the cop uniform and starts chasing him.