An unpredictable, wealthy eccentric employs a succession of young men to talk to, and dismisses the most recent because the novelty is wearing off. However, the successor, a gauche ex-tie salesman, blossoms and is happy in the paternal atmosphere, until he strangles his dismissed predecessor in a horrifyingly casual manner. The employer tries to send the young man away but he is to prove fatal to his host. First staged in 1965, the play was revived at the Playhouse Theatre, London, in 2006 starring Ian Richardson.