Saïd is a fisherman who has carefully saved up a small fortune to buy a coffeehouse. He imagines this to be the start of his upward climb in social status, until his savings mysteriously disappear. Convinced that this is the work of a jinni, he packs up his belongings and leaves with his wife, headed for a new start somewhere else.

Along the way, Saïd gets ahead smoothly by cunning and thievery, yet his fortunes are just as easily reversed by a turn of luck or the trickery of others.

After some rises and falls in his fortunes, Saïd is finally established as a merchant—but will his relentless greed cause his downfall?