Valentine Fitzclare, charming scoundrel, furiously-honest charlatan, uxorious cad, drinker, trickster, con, a once-famous now epically obscure film director, is sinking. Literally: his rusty barge (and only home) has sprung a leak. But that's the least of his worries: his single great production is thirty years old and almost all his fans are sure he is dead. Which doesn't bother his lover, George, an attractively mysterious woman, who keeps them both in food and drink by massaging bankers' wives for cash. But it bothers Fitz a lot. Besides, he still feels that he has something he needs to say.