A horrible succession of randomly selected Kings of England is broken when Auberon Quin is chosen, who doesn't care about anything but a good joke. For fun, he institutes elaborate costumes for the provosts of the London boroughs. Everyone is bored with the King's antics, except one young man who takes the cry of regional pride seriously: Adam Wayne, governor of a London borough, Notting Hill. Problems arise when other suburbs plan to build a road through that town. Dialogue does not resolve the dispute and a fight begins, led by the eponymous Napoleon of Notting Hill. At the end of this satire, Auberon Quin and Adam Wayne finally realize that they represent the two parts of the brain: the common man who knows when to fight and when to love, when to laugh and when to die.