An innocent first year undergraduate at an Oxford College is sent down for alleged sexual impropriety. Through a misunderstanding he lands a job in the City, where he makes a particularly favourable impression on the owner of the firm for which he works, a colourful and hopelessly politically incorrect figure. He relishes life in the financial world and the experiences that it brings, not least the art of seduction. After a series of erotic adventures through a light-hearted satire of education, life in the City, psychiatrists, the police and the legal profession, the hero decides to set up a company for innocents such as himself, and discreetly returns to Oxford. Barry Able is an Oxbridge don who divides his time between teaching, research, and ticking boxes.