Act 1 Summary

As the first act opens, a young man named Valentine is lazily conversing with a servant, Jeremy, about the nature of Valentine's woeful financial situation. Valentine is the privileged son of a wealthy man, but has squandered all his money on women and entertainment. At present, Valentine is in self-imposed seclusion so as to avoid all the debt collectors to whom he owes large sums of money.

Valentine has taken to reading books, a habit which Jeremy notes will bring in no money, so can have no worthwhile purpose. Valentine, however, considers the possibility of earning an income by writing poetry. The two men are joined by Valentine's best friend, Scandal, who agrees with Jeremy that Valentine does not have much future in writing for income.

Jeremy is repeatedly called away from the conversation to answer knocks at the door. Each time Jeremy...