In London in the early eighteenth century, two rollicking young gentlemen, Aimwell and Archer, their money spent and their only alternatives being to marry money or to sell their swords for the wars, conceal their poverty from their gay London friends, and ride into the country to let fate decide their course for them. They are still in possession of their last two hundred pounds, and they have conceived a shrewd plan: by turns one is to play the fine lord, the other his servant, the better to impress the country folk.