The story, narrated in the first person, is about a boy and his friend Mahony taking a day off from school to seek adventure in their dull lives.

However, "The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself.

An older man approaches them and begins talk of such mundane subjects as reading Sir Walter Scott and boys having young sweethearts.

Joyce's brother Stanislaus wrote that the story was based on their encounter with an "elderly pederast" while playing truant.

[1] The boys' journey to the Pigeon House has been interpreted as a futile quest for Ireland's Church, like the visit to the bazaar "Araby", and the pervert they encounter has been taken as a counterpart to Father Flynn in "The Sisters".