The writer Moldovantsev is ordered a novel with a sequel. It should be an entertaining work full of adventure - a novel about a shipwrecked Soviet Robinson Crusoe. The novel is on schedule and the editor-in-chief likes it. But he believes that it is necessary to introduce into the plot also the chairman of the local committee, two released members, one activist - a collector of membership fees, a commission for the distribution of housing and, of course, broad layers of workers. It is necessary to create all the conditions for them to work, and therefore the wave must throw ashore a fireproof cabinet for storing membership dues, a table for meetings, and a bell, and a tablecloth. True, the editor does not restrict artistic creativity: the tablecloth can be red, maybe green - Since the editor is adamant, the writer agrees to everything, even to throw Robinson himself out of the novel as an absurd, unjustified figure of a moaner.