Chapter 4 Summary

After settling on a main course for Olaf's dinner, the Baudelaire siblings travel to the market with Strauss to buy the necessary ingredients. Returning home, the children make the dish, enjoying the moment and wishing that they were back home with their parents. The moment is shattered when Olaf returns and declares that he was expecting roast beef. He leans menacingly over them and states, "I am not someone to be trifled with." The orphans' fear increases when Olaf picks Sunny up and dangles her in the air, out of reach of her worried siblings. However, he is interrupted as his theater troupe begins to arrive.

The troupe is a conglomeration of unsavory characters that seem to be just as bad as Olaf. They include a hook-handed man, two women wearing white make-up, a bald man with a very long nose and a...