Philip Gordon-Davies and his brother Stuart run an advertising agency, and as the play opens we learn that Stuart has negotiated a merger with an American agency. If the deal is closed then there will be an exchange of personnel between firms with a permanent post in New York for a representative of the Gordon-Davis agency. Both Philip's crippled son Charles, and Roderick Chappel, Stuarts protégé, are interested in the position, each for his own reasons. The ensuing battle lays bare the intimate private lives of the family, and forces the characters to take sides...