' Someone jolted my elbow as I drank & said Je vous demande pardon & as I moved to give him space he turned & stared at me & I at him & I realised with a strange sense of shock & fear & nausea all combined that his face & voice were known to me too well I was looking at myself' By chance two men
- one English the other French
- meet in a provincial railway station Their resemblance is uncanny & they spend the next few hours talking & drinking
- until at last John the Englishman falls into a drunken stupor It's to be his last carefree moment for when he wakes his French companion has stolen his identity & disappeared So John steps into the Frenchman's shoes & faces a variety of perplexing roles
- as owner of a chateau director of a failing business head of a fractious family & master of nothing