An elderly umbrella mender and his longtime drinking buddy and basket maker engage in a night of revelry in this satirical drama. The drunken umbrella maker tries to make his way through the snow to the house of his old flame, the village prostitute. He is found frozen to death in the snow by his friend the next morning. Since the body is right on the border between two countries, both villages refuse to take responsibility for the man's burial. After the body is volleyed back and forth between the two villages, the basket maker devises a scheme. He makes out a false will that has both villages clamoring over the right to give the dead man a decent Christian burial.