Cyril Boggis is a shrewd London antique dealer who travels through the countryside of England searching for undiscovered and highly-valued pieces that he can buy cheap and sell for a huge profit in the city. He dresses in a clergyman's robe and drives to the smaller rural towns on Sundays, looking for hidden treasures. This form of a swindle provides Boggis with a comfortable living, and one day he comes upon an extremely valuable piece of furniture in a farmer's barn. He offers the farmer a pittance, telling him he only wants the legs from the cabinet. Trying to be helpful, the farmer and his friends chop off the legs and smash the rest of the antique into firewood.