The young circus performer Stella is adored by two men: An earl and a jeweler. She fancies the earl the most, but at some point the jeweler made advances to her and the earl hits him. The jeweler challenges the earl - to a card game. After some luck the earl loses again and again. At the end he has to sign an instrument of debt of 85000 Mark. He buys a gun with the intent to commit suicide. Stella discovers the gun and takes it away from him. Stella goes to the jewelers and steals a necklace. The jeweler sees it in a mirror but doesn't stop her. Instead he follows her. She meets with the earl and gives him the necklace and tells him to sell it. After they part, the jeweler grabs her and confronts her with her misdeed. He doesn't hand her over to the police, though he gets an opportunity. Instead he compels her to have dinner with him. The earl sells the necklace to a wholesale jeweller...

After the old-books shop closes, portraits of the Strumpet, Death, and the Devil come to life and amuse themselves by reading stories--about themselves, of course, in various guises and eras. Four of the stories are literary horror stories (one by Poe, one by R. L. Stevenson), and the last one is a comedy involving a fake haunting.

Karl Valentin gets a new desk one of which absolutely does not fit his needs. He tries to solve the problem in some really strange ways.