A man is forced into stealing by the circumstances of his life and the pressures put upon him by the system. He has inherited a small factory from his father who made furniture, but he finds competition from plastic products has made his own too expensive. In desperation, he carts his furniture outside and begins to burn it. At the same time he takes to robbery, holding up banks, stores and post offices, in order to pay his employees. His happy home life is complicated by an affair with a woman who works in one of the post offices he has tried to hold up. He continues his clandestine love life until the police intervene, and pick him up at a holiday show that he is putting on with his wife in their small town.