In times past, a man's home was his castle wherein he could lord it over wife and offspring. In America today the good family man governs his household only with the advice and consent of the governed---and usually gets more advice than consent! Such a family man is Charles Burnett in whose "parlor" this story takes place. Burnett is an ex-newspaperman, now head of the journalism school of a western university. He comes home for a quiet evening, but before bedtime his loving but free-thinking wife and daughters have drawn him into a political deal with the Governor of the State, a soul-shaking debate with one daughter's boyfriend on love and marriage, a heated squabble with the loving wife, an altercation with the state policemen and finally a head-on collision with a powerful political fixer.