The film is made from three short stories by W. Somerset Maugham. The first, "The Ant and the Grasshopper" concerns the trials and tribulations that ne'er-do-well Tom Ramsey puts his prim-and-proper businessman brother George Ramsey through. The escapades that drive George to absolute distraction eventually wins the hand of the world's third-richest girl, Margaret Vyne, for shiftless Tom; "Winter Cruise" finds the crew of a cargo boat becoming unglued by the endless chatter of a spinster passenger named Miss Reid. In a desperate attempt to silence the prattling busybody, the ship's officers browbeat a French steward, Pierre into making love to her. The results provide some astounding surprises for the officers, Pierre, and, for certain, Miss Reid; In "The Gigolo and the Gigolette" segment, beautiful daredevil Stella Cotman, who entertains the jaded guests of a resort hotel by diving nightly from an eighty-foot platform into a flaming tank, is losing her nerve.